Scattering the Morning Dew

Woo! Finally getting around to Part 2 – Sorry for the delay, I have actually been getting back into a productive way of life and a swing of things, so to speak, so blogging has been the last thing on my mind.

Blogging is usually the last thing on my mind, come to think of it…

Anyway, here is a continuation of my last post – January to Present…ish? Now, where did I leave off?

 -Christmas in Senegal:

This was my first Christmas ever sans ma famille et mes amis (without my family and friends)… or SNOW, so it was a little weird walking into the last few weeks of December, to say the least.  Early in the month, I started out the “Get in the Christmas Spirit” mood right by downloading a massive collection of Christmas songs and decorating my room with DIY magazine Christmas trees and a sweet countdown chain… that I did not actually utilize and which will remain on my wall until next year!  As Christmas approached, however, I was becoming more and more skeptical… I mean a warm Christmas? NO SNOW? That just had to be the weirdest thing EVER to me… especially when it comes to my concept of Christmas (Baking cookies, going sledding Christmas morning, enjoying a nice fire to escape the bitter cold outside, dysfunctional family gatherings, etc).

But… I gave it a chance and man, was it a wonderful time with my extended Peace Corps family here in Senegal. Several of my stagemates and I rented out a small house in a town called Popenguine on the Petit-Côte just south of Dakar while another groups of PCVs rented a larger house just down the beach from us.  We did a bunch of group meals together including a delicious Mexican cuisine Christmas Eve feast, yummy Americanish breakfasts, and a delicious Julia Child Chicken Recipe with some awesome side dishes and delicious desserts (I made my first attempt at lemon bars!) for Christmas dinner.  Overall, I got to cook, share Christmas with some great people, and ate uncomfortable amounts of food… turned out to be not so different from Christmas at home, after all!

-New Year’s Eve Dakar:

I never imagined my first New Year’s in Senegal to turn out as fancy as it did… granted, every time my friends and I travel to Dakar, it’s automatically classified as fancy time, but seriously, we did classy New Year’s like it was our job.  Since I wanted to feel pretty and normal for a change, my friend Kelsey and I decided to head to Sea Plaza in Dakar to do a little shopping… a few hours later, I walked out with a dress and some stockings (it was cold in windy Dakar!) from United Colors of Benetton, some HOTT heels from Aldo, some gourmet eats from Casino for hors d’oeuvres and dinner, and a HURTING American debit card. Oops.  Afterward, we headed back to Six to get ready and hit the town for the evening… a very late evening.  A memorable New Year’s to say the least with some wonderful people.

-IST/CED Summit/All-Vol/SeneGAD/WAIST:

You are probably asking yourselves, “Did she just give me a secret code or something?” No, I did not… it just goes to show you how much PCVs (there I go again) sincerely love acronyms and abbreviations.  Thus, why I started my additional page on my blog entitled, “What does THAT mean?”  Check it out for further elaboration of these things I just listed above, but for a quick run-down: IST, or In-Service Training, was a one-week, technically-focused follow-up to my Stage’s 2.5 month training when we arrived in Senegal.  Every PCV has an IST during their service, typically 3 months after installing at their Site, after which we are deemed as ready to get to work fo’ real!  It was a great week full of informative sessions and just general bonding time with the bebe stage (all 15 of us)!  Since our sector is undergoing a big structural change, we also learned that we are from here on out no longer known as SEDers, but CEDers, or Community Economic Development Agents, here in Peace Corps Senegal (A move that’s being made internationally amongst fellow business volunteers in Peace Corps).

Immediately following our IST, we had an all-sector summit for CED where every volunteer in our sector came together to share thoughts and ideas about projects and where CED is headed in the future. Next up: SeneGAD’s annual conference and All-Vol, or The West Africa All-Volunteer Conference, were both essentially best-practices sharing times for us PCVs… volunteers from all over Peace Corps West Africa attended including some of our close neighbors from The Gambia, Mali, Guinea, and Cape Verde.  It was a really beneficial learning time for me, overall.  I went to sessions on Tostan’s work in Senegal, a soccer tournament some Gambian volunteers organized to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, the Talibe in Senegal, how to start a school garden at your site, a diversity panel composed of fellow Senegal PCVs representing a wide array of volunteer backgrounds (i.e. the “female” volunteer, the “black” volunteer, the “older” volunteer, etc), and a bunch of others.  Lots of information was thrown at me, but it was a great time for people to share their projects they’ve been working so hard on and I’m sure ignited a lot of new ideas, as well – I know it did for me!

Last, but certainly not least… W.A.I.S.T. or the West African Invitational Softball Tournament is an annual tradition organized by the U.S. Embassy in Dakar. Peace Corps, the Embassy, local Dakar residents, and other organizations like Peace Corps (aka JICA – Japan’s equivalent of Peace Corps), all form teams to participate in this weekend-long extravaganza, and it definitely is an extravaganza, in the spirit of having a good old fashioned American time – aka eating hotdogs, drinking beer, and making a poor attempt at playing softball.  In Peace Corps, each region forms a team and chooses a “theme” to dress up as.  This year, the Dakar region chose ZE FRENCH.  Striped shirts, ray-bans, red lipstick, mustaches, cigarette extenders, inappropriate beachwear, French café music, baguettes, a general inclination for laziness, and white flags to surrender with during the games – needless to say, we made being French très chic.

-Readjustment Back in Bambey:

Phew! As you can see, December through January was a whirlwind of a month for me.  When I finally returned to site after almost a month away, I was exhausted to say the least and took several days of much-needed rest.  Then I realized that readjusting wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was… I had been away for a month, speaking practically nothing but English, with mostly other Americans, eating Americanesque food, and all the while functioning under an extremely structured schedule (well, compared to that of my normal every day life here!).  Can you say, culture shock… all over again?!  And for a bit, that’s exactly what readjusting to site turned out to be. 

At times during the first few weeks, I felt like I was starting from scratch again, like it was after I had just installed back in August, and that my language skills had taken a turn for the worse.  In retrospect, it was a down time, for sure, but a necessary one at that.  Readjustment is difficult sometimes in many aspects of life and though at times it felt like I was back at the starting line of this Marathon of a two years that Peace Corps sometimes feels like, I knew that I’d get over the hill I was battling at that point in time… And I did!

Now I’m back at it, trying to push forward in a somewhat slow and unproductive time period in Senegal with all eyes focused on the current Presidential Election – there are strikes in the schools holding me back from really beginning teaching JA classes, hot season has returned in full force, and my room is in dire need of a serious cleaning session after the harsh Harmattan (Wind) whipped through Senegal for the past month and a half, leaving nothing but dust in their wake…

C’est la vie en Afrique – it never ceases to amaze me in the slightest.  I can be annoyed, frustrated, angry, and confused at it all I want, but before I know it, I’m wooed back into a state of perpetual fascination and admiration.  Life intrigues me here in a different way than anywhere else and ultimately, I couldn’t ask for anything more in my life right now than a dust-filled room, a disregard to the way sweat forms on all parts of my body in Senegal’s 90 degree heat, or the inshallahattitude that drives the course and fate of my projects here… and will for the next year and a half.  

Woah… that was heavy. That’s all for now. Until next time…

Sincerely,

The Worst Blogger Ever