Home Sweet Home

Over 2 years in Peace Corps - Senegal and I'm home. I've received questions like "How was it?", "Are you glad you did it?" and "Are you happy to be home?" like 100 times. Although it is hard to sum it up, overall, it was "Great", "Yes", and "Yes, like you wouldn't believe!"

The last week and a half has been crazy. I came in on a Wednesday and was greeted by my mom, dad, brother, grandma, boyfriend, and 3 family friends at the airport. We went home and had the best deli sandwiches and awaited 2 more friends who stopped by to visit. That evening, we got sushi from Nakashima's first and then had tacos for dinner. Food is soo good here!

Thursday and Friday I spend all day pampering myself. I got an 1 hour 1/2 long massage, manicure and a hair cut/color. Mom also ran me around Neenah fast enough to overwhelm me. Now, let's not blame her, but I can tell you the adjustment has been more or less what I expected. I am used to moving at African speed. Mom can get from one side of the Valley to the other in just 15 minutes! That's usually how long it took me to walk 1 block because of all the greeting! I went into one store with her and while she was busy going around the whole place picking up what she needed, I stared at one wall and answered the cashier's questions. I eventually sat down to wait for mom to finish. After we got back in the car I told Mom, slow down! Besides that, another time I got so stressed out I just started crying. I guess the errands, and doctors and dentist appointments just the best of me. I'm just going to take some time getting back into the swing of things.

After about a week, I was busy in the car buying search. I test drove a few different cars and small suv's and finally decided on an 04 Subaru Outback. I also have started the job search. I think that crying fit had something to do with my thoughts following my first interview. I don't think I'm ready for a 9-5 at a desk, on the phone. Could you get any more different from daily life in Africa?! But this is all what it takes to be American again, right? My second interview is today, so we'll see how it goes.

I've gone to a wedding and a concert, rollerbladed and played tennis, seen family and friends, drove my new car, gone shopping and done so much that I couldn't have done in Senegal, so really, you would think that I would stop thinking about it as often as I do. It's not that I forget I'm in America. And it's not that I miss Senegal, that much. I just am going through this stage of re-adjustment that we all go through, and I don't really know how to explain it to you.

Anyways, the other big question I have received is "So what are you going to do now?" Well. I don't really have an answer just yet. I want to be in WI through spring 2010. I hope to find temporary, flexible work close to Nick, in West Bend. I want to go to weddings, take road trips and enjoy the seasons. Come spring, Nick and I hope to move out to Colorado. I want to find work with the government in environmental sustainability or renewable energy. But I know that there is a limit to all the planning so I'm up for whatever comes my way!

Thanks for reading my blog all this while! This is my last posting and eventually, when I figure out how I want to scrapbook and bind up my last 2 years, I will remove this website. So enjoy the last album of photos and give me a call anytime - my new number is 920. 213.2800.

The Left Handshake

The last few days at site were some of my most difficult yet. I sure had a tough service! But I still can't believe is just about over. On Saturday, I went to Thies to pick up my replacement, Katherine, from training center and bring her back to Bambey to show her around. We went to about 5 houses of my work partners and I answered many of her questions, but then I found out that a good work partner of mine, Fallou, passed away from a heart attack. He was going to be Katherine's assigned counterpart that would have shown her all around Bambey and been a great partner through out her service. Fallou was my host dad's uncle so the funeral was at my house. I have been to many Senegalese events, weddings and baptisms and a couple funerals, but this one was different. I knew Fallou. He was a great man. He was a man who shook my hand and made my whole arm shake. A man who I actually flirted back when he hit on me! I had seen him a few days prior and was saving his goodbye for Sunday. He was a man who was always smiling and so willing to go out of his way to help me out and believed in development. He showed me around to 4 schools and introduced me to principals so I could figure out where to do my tree nursery project. Hundreds of people came to our house to celebrate his life. They sacrificed a cow and made delicious food but my last 48 hours at site were spent among tears because the entire community suffered such an unexpected loss.

Since I spent the entire weekend at my house, I didn't get to see everyone and say all of my goodbyes. At 6pm Sunday, I changed out of my traditional Senegalese attire and made a grand tour of Bambey to say goodbye to as many people as I could one last time. I made some incredible frienships and will always remember my Senegalese families and friends. The Wolof way to say goodbye is to shake left hands, to ensure that we will see each other again. I cried saying goodbye to Awa and her daughter, who absolutly loved my teddy bear I gave her and I also cried after Matar left my house. Those people will always be in my heart. I found the perfect quote to summarize this:

You get a strange feeling when youre about to leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again. -Azir Nafisi

I have very mixed feelings about these 2 years coming to an end. I had a tough service but honestly loved it here. I helped artisans out and met a lot of great people and introduced some new ideas in the failings of my compost project. I made a ton of contacts for Katherine and she is excited to continue a lot of my work which really puts me at ease. I made such great Peace Corps friends and traveled throughout Africa. I mastered the national language of Senegal and am completely comfortable among Islamic and Wolof lifestyles. I have lived in Senegal and love the person that it has made me.

So although the bitter part is leaving Senegal, the sweet part is that I am coming home! I can't wait to see my family, (with a much healthier brother and a grandma who said she owes me a few dinners) my wonderful boyfriend, and eat amazing food and go shopping. To buy a car, computer and cell phone will be expensive but it will also make an American out of me. No more eating out of a bowl with my right hand - my left is clean, I swear! I am looking forward to speeding up my lifestyle, working out and getting healthy (can't wait to be off my TB meds in under 20 days!). I am already deep in the job search and plan to stay in Wisconsin until Spring '10. After that, I am hoping to find an environmental job out west.

I don't know how many more blogs I will be writing, as I fly out 1 week from today, but thanks for reading! Everyone who has been in touch while I have been over seas has really helped me get through this part of my life that was quite challenging most of the time! Thank you! And see you next week!

Higher Ground

I moved. Again. I remember a blog long, long ago where I mentioned how exciting it was to have the same apartment for 2 years time, since I moved every year I was at school. Well, in Peace Corps, there is no telling what will happen! I am now living in my 3rd apartment and I love it and know my replacement will be happy here. I feel lucky to have made friends and work partners in 2 different neighborhoods. Someone told me that my replacement is going to get tired quickly trying to meet as many people as I have met all over Bambey. I love that I am back in the same neighborhood where I started, back to my favorite breakfast boutique and where I am wading through less water! I think my favorite part of this new place is the ceiling fan and a toilet – get this – that you can sit on!!

I finished up my murals that the primary school before I moved, which is nice since it’s such a hike to get all the way back there. Bambey is bigger than you think! I started another mural in a middle school here and its going well. I had to take a break for a few days since I had a fever. Blame the mosquitoes! Everyone is getting sick here. As PCVs, we are required to take meds to prevent us from getting full-blown malaria but back in training, our doctor said “we all have a little malaria in us”. It was just my time for a 2 day fever I guess, which is normal – my temp didn’t go above 102. Looking forward to cooler weather and NO mosquitoes for a change! (15 days!) Just finished the mural this morning, looks pretty cool!

This week is my last week – my last full Monday in Bambey! I made a schedule of all the formal good byes I have to say, divided daily by neighborhood since some live pretty far away. My list has 23 people’s names, but I know there will be more. There is no way I could get it done in just 1 day. 4 days is going to be a stretch. I am going to give away all my stuff that my replacement won’t want and will be bringing home only souvenirs from Senegal. None of my clothes deserve the trip back to America! Then on Saturday, I will be showing my replacement around Bambey for the day, which I am really looking forward to. Since I can’t host him/her the whole week, we will go to the closest hosting volunteer’s place on Sunday and I will drop him/her off. Then Monday I’m moving out of Bambey! Can’t even believe that’s a week away!

Quick story that made me laugh: The other day I was walking through town and a little boy, not older than 5 came running up to me yelling “Toubab!” but unlucky for him, I choose to ignore this, so kept walking. He got very frustrated and finally said, “Toubab, hower ooo? Hower ooo?” So I replied, I’m fine, how are you? “Ahhh toubab bi wax na I’m fine, hower ooo!!!” He was so excited I couldn’t help but laugh! It’s the first time I’ve had a kid that young speak to me in English – I think they are finally getting it: I’m not French!
My two years of fame are just about up - I’ll be home before you know it and missing my Wolof life, that’s for sure! See you in a couple weeks!

Getting Dirty

So this is it -- it's my last 19 day stretch at site. Hard to believe that I won't be back here anytime soon, if ever. The "this is my last (insert something here)" seems to be happening more often than not! I have to admit, it is really bitter-sweet. I am LOVING Bambey.

After I left Dakar, I went to Thies to meet the newbies. It took us over 3 hours to get there in a Peace Corps car because of so much flooding. You should check out my pictures in Baol Baol and Beyond - I have added some to show you just what rainy season looks like. I caught enough rain water last night in buckets to do my laundry!!

I presented to the new stage my work with Matar on accounting. Daniel and I tried our best to spark interest in artisan work since about 1/4 of everyone in there will be working with artisans, they just don't know it yet! They should find out their sites Sept 10. And I get to meet my replacement Sept 12!

I got back to site loaded with painting supplies and contacted a teacher in the primary school. I am no artist, that is for sure! But I am trying to get the message across even if my pictures don't look like the example. It is really fun to do and I have a great sense of accomplishment: I painted 2 murals this morning, what did you do? Today I finished a wash your hands and a brush your teeth mural. This afternoon I will start one on AIDS on the outside of the school wall. Can't wait to see how much attention I get!

I have been really enjoying Ramadan this year. Maybe it's because I eat lunch with a Catholic family, and then break the fast with Muslims, and then eat dinner at home. How can you go wrong? Everything is going to change when I move back to my old neighborhood in September, but I think I may still come and eat with my Catholic family, even though it will be a long walk. It will be great to leave my mark here in Wakhal Diam with paintings on the walls and trees planted in my apartment from my compost project, but even better to go back to the neighborhood that felt betrayed when I left them. It's nice knowing I will be leaving on a good note.

So my hands are full of paint, I get to splash in puddles everywhere I go, and eat at least 4 times a day! I think these last few days in Bambey are going to be good ones!

Fasting... again

It’s Ramadan again. I arrived in Senegal during Ramadan, so this would be my third month of fasting for Muslims. Not that I am a fan of fasting! Many volunteers do it: wake up before dawn to eat the first meal with their families and then avoid all water and food until the sun sets. I tried just one day of it last year and by 4pm I was seeing stars every time I stood up, dizzy with dehydration. This year will be the first Ramadan that I will actually be in Senegal the entire month. The first one we arrived on the second day of Ramadan at the training center, so it wasn’t real Senegal: more like summer camp where they provided our lunch while all the trainers took a nap. The second one I was 3 weeks of it in Europe and America. (Do you realize it’s been a year since I was home last?) So this year, what is my plan for Ramadan ‘09?

I am currently in Dakar. I had to say goodbye to my good friends Chris and Mandi, who just COS’ed. Chris was the first PCV that I met at staging and we ate lunch together in Atlanta. Mandi was my roommate at Sheraton and my roommate at the training center. Our first night apart in Senegal was install in November when she went off to Pout and I went to Bambey. Saying these goodbyes is not easy but just something in Peace Corps we get used to since everyone leaves sometime.

This week I will be at the training center teaching the newbies about my experience teaching record keeping and answering their many questions. I am looking forward to meeting the group that is replacing my group.

When I get back to site, it will be my last stretch at site before leaving. My plan is to paint some murals like I did with Erin up at her site and finish out-planting the trees at the middle school. I will have plenty of time since everyone that I could usually hang out with will be too tired and hungry to think. Me on the other hand, I will be eating. The idea of not eating to test my self control doesn’t sound too appealing, especially since who knows what would happen since I’m still on antibiotics for latent TB; I don’t want to test my body’s limits. I will be moving out of site around the 14th and since Ramadan follows the lunar cycle so it should be over to celebrate Korite with my Thies family on September 20 or 21. Peace Corps is purchasing my plane tickets to fly me home on September 23. I think I will be ready and am pretty excited to find out what it’s like to live in America again.

Working out of Site

Okay, so it's been a while! Sorry if your daily schedule depends on my updates ;-)

Since I last wrote, I first had a site visit from my new boss. Nicole is American and just replaced our last APCD (assistant peace corps director) who was here for 6 years. It is nice to have a change of pace! She came along with Bamba, my tech trainer and I wanted to introduce them to the counterpart I have chosen for my replacement. I was assigned a counterpart that didn't do his job for me, hurting me real early on since he didn't show me around. I think Fallou will be great for my replacement. When Fallou didn't show up right away for our meeting at the mayor's office, it was so interesting what happened. We were brought in to a small room in the mayor's office to meet with someone who I recognized but couldn't name. So akward since he knew me, but anyways, it turns out his daughter won the scholarship last year that I did in the middle schools. We decided after all the pleasentries to leave and continue with our other meetings, since why did I really need to introduce this guy to my bosses?! Turns out he has a room he would like to show us for the next volunteer. And it all comes together! I had been looking for a few weeks and didn't have any really good leads. But the second we saw his place, we were sold. I am officially jealous of my replacement: second floor room with private balcony, bathroom, ceiling fan and screens on the windows! And a great counterpart! How can they not succeed?!

Following a successful site visit, I took the free ride to Dakar. We stopped in Thies for lunch and hung out at the training center for a while. All the Mauritanian volunteers are in Senegal now, and it sounds to be for longer than planned. For security reasons they are closing down the program, temporarily at least. They were given the choice to go home but about 40 want to be reassigned in Senegal. We will see! Anyways, because they were interested in doing a bit of tourism in the region, we took the long way around (in the pc car) to a monestary that sells the most amazing goat cheese and to Lac Rose. Supposidly, the lake is pink because of the salt level. We took a picture but weren't that impressed, and just really wanted to get out of there because of the horrible harrassment to buy from the tourist stalkers!

After I arrived in Dakar, I enjoyed an empty regional house and relaxation. Didn't do much besides the pool and movies but I think it was exactly what I needed. A few days later, I went to Joal for the Health/Enviro Education Summit. Mandi and I were asked to lead sessions on how to effectively do SED work with groups. It was really fun to hang out with the group that got here 6 months and 1yr and 6 months after we did, since up until now, I didn't know anyone outside the Dakar region.

The first week of Dakar I was teaching at a summer English Camp funded by the US Embassy. Since there were so many volunteers in Dakar the regional house was full, so Mandi, Erin and I stayed at our country director's house. I slept so well under blankets in air conditioning! The camp was a lot of fun. It was in a poor suburb of Dakar. We had 150 high school students and only 11 volunteers. More or less, mass chaos daily! Discussions went well in small groups and we made them do head, shoulders, knees and toes every time we heard Wolof. I helped organize Olympic Day and the kids had a bast with tug-of-war especially.

Before leaving Dakar, I went to see my wood-working artisan, Mamadou. He is illiterate but wants a web site to find him more more clients. I will be working with Ellen, my closest neighbor to see what we can do for him. I hope to get him brochures at least and set up an easy website but obviously am running out of time in my service so I hope Ellen will continue working with him. He does great work, but deals with too much competition since every woodcarver makes the same stuff!

After we were done in Dakar, Erin and I went up to her site which borders Mauritania. It was a long car ride but so worth it! I wish I would have gone up sooner. We had a blast together and painted a mural at a school, and started a second one but got rained out before we could finish. Her site is so remote and tree-less but the people are great! This mural says "We respect our community, we discuss AIDS".

And so now I am back at site and have plenty to do this week. Reports to write to PC being the most time consuming - most are due a month prior to my COS - which is next week! I have trees to outplant and people interested in starting up new tree nurseries. I also want to go around and see people once more before I have to say goodbye to them, so that is going to involve cooking some ceebu jen and drinking some attaya, but I am up for it! I should be around until next weekend when I will go back to Dakar to say some more dreaded goodbyes to friends leaving.

Stir Crazy

Bambey is getting really good at exhausting me. I am constantly thinking about my return home and all the food I'll get to eat, fun things I'll get to do and the people I will get to see. Here, the power is out more than it isn't, my fan is broken (getting fixed, hopefully today) making my room very hot and sleep hard to come by, and there isn't a whole lot of work to do. I'm at the point in my service when I have to close up everything rather than find new projects to initiate.

What have I done here lately? I planted a few trees from my tree nursery last weekend. At the middle school, the environmental club filled about 500 tree sacs and seeded them all. We out-planted 5 thorny trees and 1 neem tree. I will go back in a few weeks and out plant 30-50 more of 2 different varieties. It's not 500 but it's something, right? And my rooftop garden is sprouting! Yippee!

I have been working for Ndem quite a bit lately. I created a Winter in Africa collection and sent out documents to all the clients I have in the States promoting the new line. I also have a summer line and will hand off that to my replacement. Let's hope we have a group that chooses to purchase product from Ndem. I have tried my whole service to find them an American lead but have fallen short. I hear the economy isn't doing so well? I did all this work here in Bambey since there is no real reason to go to Ndem, but went just yesterday to greet everyone. I was rather disappointed with how it went. I walked there (2 hour hike - really enjoyable!) since my bike was there with a flat tire. I got there and hung out with the guys in the office for a bit, who were definately on a mental vacation. Not a lot of work to be done lately. Then I went to go and see the religious leader and his wife. I wanted to tell them what I have done with the Winter Collection and thank them for everything. I doubt I will be going back to the village. But they were very stand off-ish, and were in some secret meeting with 2 other white people that obviously they didn't want me present for. Maybe I shouldn't take offence to this, but I did. I waited 3 hours for a car to come and by noon, the religious leader didn't show up at the office so I took the car with my bike in the trunk and headed back to Bambey. I was also going to tell Ndem that I was gifting them my computer for the artisan office but I guess that will have to wait for some other time. Oh well.

A fun thing that I did earlier this week was shopping in Thies! I went to the artisanal village and bought souvenirs. I have been here a long time and see this stuff all the time, everywhere. But at the same time, it would be really wierd to go home without some wooden masks and artwork. So Mandi came along with me, and we ended up getting to a restaurant just in time to avoid getting soaked by the next 3 hours of downpour.

So today I went and and hung out with Matar for a while, but this afternoon I'm outta here! I know I haven't been in Bambey for very long, and there was a time when I could stay at site 3 weeks, but that time isn't now. I need to enjoy my last few weeks (8!) in Senegal and cooped up in my 100 degree room all day isn't making me happy. I have some big stuff planned in the next few weeks: next Wednesday I am co-teaching a session with Mandi to a different sector about SED work and how to collaborate between sectors; the week following I am teaching at an English camp and the week after that I am going up north to visit Erin's site. My time left (did I mention it's only 8 weeks?) will fly by, but I gotta DO something to keep me from going crazy!