How far will you go?

6:59am, sitting in Dabo.  Definitely the earliest I’ve ever seen this town.

My last ride out was not ferocious, more a slow rotation that began before dawn.  Maneuvering down the bush path, my mind drifted between fuzzy scenes dense with the feelings of leaving my family of two years that morning and my favorite memories from the FB.  Hollywood tells us that before you die your life flashes before your eyes.  Well, I most certainly am not dying, and tough it was just a week over two years of my life, my time in Fodé Bayo was in ways a life of its own.  One that as of this morning I will never be able to return to in the same way.  (Sorry for the clichés and the drama, communicating how this all went down is a bit beyond my english skills at the time being.)

Many of the ethnic groups in Senegal have a tradition of bidding farewell via a left-handed shake.  Seasoned readers of this blog will remember from my cultural integration training way back when, that to give, receive, or gesture with your left hand is considered very rude in Senegal.  The idea of the left-handed shake then, is that when you leave someone who you are not sure if or when you will see again, you bid them farewell by shaking with the wrong hand.  Shaking hands with the left is awkward and uncomfortable. It goes against years of social training.  As hands clasp and move in up and down in their familiar gesture, the urge to squirm away and correct it is overwhelming.  This, is exactly what the left hand shake is intended to do – it’s a personification of the feelings people are experiencing as they give someone the love of an uncertain farewell.

18 July, 2011

Above is my attempt to sort through my emotions while I sat in my road town the morning I left Fodé Bayo.   In line with village tradition, I woke to leave before the first call to prayer at 5am. Whenever people leave village, they leave before anyone in the village wakes up so that a new day can began without having to say goodbye.  Instead, everyone wakes up and you are gone and life is supposed to continue as if it was always this way, without the dramas of in-person farewells.

In Mandinka, when you know you are going to be sad, you say that you will be sick.  There is a word for sadness, and there is a word for missing someone or something, but when the sadness is the type that will be overwhelming, it becomes not just saddness but a bed-ridden sickness.

My last night in village, we cooked a whole sack of rice and had a drum circle until 2 in the morning.  While everyone knew this was for my goodbye, no one mentioned it.  We all just ate and danced and said goodnight as normal.  It was my counterpart who stopped me before I went into my hut and said that he would be sick all day the next day, because I would not be there.  I didn’t know how to respond.

That morning when I wheeled my bike out of my hut at 4:45, I was supposed to just leave.  I sat on the floor with Nacho, giving him a last few scratches behind his ears (Nacho was thrilled at this 4am wake up – more hours in the day to pay right? That definitely could be the only explanation for waking up this early).  As he zoomed off into the bush and I started to leave the compound, I couldn’t keep up the tradition of leaving on my own.  So I woke up my counterpart, who woke up my brother Malan, who woke up my two favorite moms, Diara and Aminta.  Together, they wheeled my bike and walked me to the edge of the village.  It was clear when we got to this point that no one was sure what to do, considering I was as usual breaking all normal protocol for the situation.  My counterpart started to cry, then my brother, and as I turned to my moms, Aminta just walked away.

We exchanged blessings, and promises of seeing each other soon.  I awkwardly climbed on my bike and slowly wobbled down the path (no moon, very difficult at 5am with 50lbs of junk on your bike).   The ride and car into Kolda was uneventful, which is good since my head was in a cloud.

And just like that, my two years in the village were over.

22 March, 2011

Today was the first day that discussing my leaving village with my mom became a comment that weighed more than just a logistical talk.  Apparently, “five weeks” is a span of time that is graspable, whereas “three months” was still a “I’m going to be mad at you if you leave!” amount.   It was my mom, my favorite mom, who took a sharp inhale and gave me that look when we talked about “five weeks” today.

We spent a long movie moment staring at each other before I broke it. “Don’t you say it!” I said forcing out a laugh, and walked away.  Normally this is where she’d throw in a “WAI yoooooo Ñamoo!” but I heard nothing I as made my way towards my hut.

                                                                                                                                                                                     2 April, 2011

The typical après dinner routine consists of me, mom #1, mom #1’s baby, and my sister laying around on one of the family shade structures.  This is one of the things I know I’ll miss most about village; laying in the middle of my women, letting my mind drift between their gossip and relaxing in evening breezes with flashlight moons.  Consistently, it is one of my happiest times in village.   And it’ll never be a part of my life again after the beginning of May.

                                                                                                                                                                                   13 April, 2011

I love all of the new volunteers currently demisting in Kolda.  Difficult to think about how I’ll be in Dakar and the Kolda family bonding will continue and I won’t be a part of it.

I’ve never considered my existence in Senegal not as part of the Kolda family.

And while yes, I’ll always be a part f Kolda, I will not be down here for the love and bonding, and they’ll all come to AllVol or WAIST and I just won’t know about the it that binds them together.   It makes me sad (for lack of remembering how to speak English well).  It makes me not want to extend. I’m having trouble picturing “Amanda happy” in an office job for the first time in my life.  Sitting still is not my thing.

Anyway, today brought a really special moment for me in village.  On our second day of demiss with Cibyl in the village, and for the first time, I was able to be in village with another volunteer and could sit in a crowd of people speaking ½ Mandinka ½ English and didn’t have to worry about it.  Really nice to have someone to share my village/Mandinka culture with without side explanations. Warm fuzzies, I know le sigh.

                                                                                                                                                                                  27 April, 2011

Without having counted, if I had to guess, I’d say I ate eleven mangoes today.  Successfully avoided all allergic reactions as well.

I did absolutely nothing today.  Well, not entirely true.  I speed-biked to Dabo and back to buy more candles since my headlamp is nowhere to be found in my hut.  How fitting that the last week or so in my hut I have neither my headlamp nor my phone – two of my most coveted items in vil. Understatement; I more or less had these items surgically attached the past two years.  Funny to not have them now in my final week when I wanted things to be uneventful and “perfect.”

It seems that last days are never perfect. Boxes are packed, days are full of awkward interactions where everyone knows that everyone is thinking about your leaving but everyone refuses to bring it up – life is hardly recognizable to the routine it had before the last few days in a place that has become home.  Those quintessential last days seem to sneak up on us and float by before we have the right mind to bask in them.  They come right before the comforting familiarities of routine are interrupted by the beginning of the moving out process.  Last days of life in the IL house were spent meandering from room to hollow room, sitting on the back porch and eating take-out.  Last days in Eleven were such a whirlwind of parties, long dinners, and early coffeed goodbyes, that driving out I realized that none of my last evenings included my favorite moments: each of the three roomies on a couch, DVR murmuring in the background as we munched on whatever random snack someone found and laughed at our lives and the world’s woes.

Transition to the next life chapter, better to take it and keep going.

Last year’s preferred method of harvesting mangoes was all about acrobatics.  Starting under the lowest lying branches, jump up, grab hold, lock your ankles around a particularly sturdy off-shoot, then snake up the limb.  Here, your view of the over-lying trove should be good enough to strategically plan your next move.  Once a course of action is set, monkey your way up to a good branch-jostling position, so you can adequately rattle the choicest fruits onto the expectant crowds below.

Making it rain mangoes!  Though if you’re on the collecting side, it’s smart to keep track of where the branch-shakers are.  From a good vertical distance, even the meeker-sized mangoes can have a substantial impact with your head.

This year’s collection tactic though, is focused around a solid chunk of bamboo.  Don’t bother with the already decaying bits lying about – it’s worth the extra effort to venture into the nearby bush and hack five or six choice throwing pieces of bamboo.  Trust, the more dense (less rotted) your bamboo piece is, the more confident and satisfying its WOOSH will be as it flings towards it’s golden, oblong prize.

Juicy plunder

Last night, my brother told me we’d “cut” (Mandinka for “harvest”) “tomorrow eleven–o’clock, we are going to the mango tree,” (when not collecting mangoes, Malan and I work on his English. Getting there, eh?).  11am the next day, I approached the tree where Malan was cutting mangoes via the chunck-of-flying-bamboo method with expert flair. Breaking through the lines of cows circling the tree in search of rogue mangoes, I was distracted by a bundle of green-golden orbs at the bottom of the tree. Though I shouldn’t have been (village kids have been collecting mangoes this way since they could walk), I was surprised at how well the flying-mass-of-bamboo worked at mangoe harvesting. As if to prove the point, a whooshed piece of bamboo trickled down from the top of the tree, grazed my shoulder and startled me a few steps backwards into a nice pile of cow poop (no fun in flip-flops). “Woa-ho, sorr-ey!” shouts Malan amidst fits of giggles from the crowd of little kids who’d come to watch the spectacle.  Yep, hilarious.

Fifteen minutes later, our previously humble collection of fruit had grown to an overflowing heap of juicy plunder.  As with any worthwhile endeavor, unexpected causalities did occur; one-heftily-thrown bamboo piece ricocheted off the tree with such force that as it crashed down to the ground, it used the rim of my bucket to break its fall, and thus took a bit of the bucket with it to the ground (“Ohh-ho, sorr-ey!”).  Another well-aimed throw won a particularly succulent looking mango, which fell half a foot to my right, dead center into the same pile of fresh cow dung I’d earlier stepped in.  As satisfying as the mangoe’s SPLAT was as it made contact with the cow pile, everyone mourned such a prize fruit going to waste.

The worth of a mango munch

There is more to mangoe season than bamboo sticks and acrobatic tree climbing.   Mangoe season mercifully coincides with starving season.  As of six weeks ago, our breakfast became an infrequent guest. Three weeks ago, the portion in our dinner bowls began to shrink – tonight we hit the six handfuls of rice = dinner mark.   So literally “starving” no, but the new portion size did not do much to calm the beast within when it was growling two hours before dinner was even served.

Thankfully, mangoes are surprisingly filling.  When normally come lunchtime my stomach is gurgling its discontent, after a morning of seven mangoes, the arrival of the lunch bowl is a surprise.  “Lunch? Really! Now? Why, I’m so full on mangoes that I’m not even hungry!”  Mangoes also tend to be more appetizing than rice and slimy leaf-sauce goop (shocking!).

The filling capabilities of mangoes does surprise me.  I’ve been known to down fruit of impressive proportions when out of village (i.e. where it’s available) and I can assure that never have bananas, mandarins, grapefruits or apples had even close to the same filing effect that three mid-sized mangoes have.  With some mango research for the most recent PCV Senegal newsletter, I came upon one web site that claimed mangoes to have astonishing weight-loss abilities.  “Makes sense,” I’d thought.  “They are indeed filling, I guess the trick is that you’d be too full to eat much else.”

 But then Google search “health benefits of mangoes” hit number four said that mangoes are helpful for those trying to gain weight.  “Maybe that’s the filling property?… the whatever in them that’s going straight to your ass?” I couldn’t figure this claim out, and decided it was rubbish.  I’m pretty in touch with the growth and shrinkage of my ass as it has been in constant flux for two years (albeit more on the influx side), and if mangoes do in fact make you gain weight, I’m confident in saying that at this point I’d have surpassed the weight limit of my bicycle.

Anyway, today’s mango consumption total is thirteen, so I have some work to do in order to ensure that my poop stays green for the next 48 hours. (NOT one of the Google-found facts – that one’s straight to you from three seasons of mangoe delight!)

Happy hot season!

http://www.protectthehuman.com/videos/50-years-of-amnesty-international

Amnesty International is one organization that I have often imagined working for, and am constantly humbled by when witnessing the scale of impact they’ve had on the world community.  It is a group of people that I can only hope to one day be qualified to work with.  AI has rocked countries and changed lives through their relentless efforts to stand up and speak out when most people find it more convenient to continue on with their lives and be content with the status quo.

It is seeing people like the ones in the video above, and learning about the work of organizations such as AI that keep me focused towards my future (nomadic and scattered as it seems to be) because AI epitomizes the kind of work that I could devote my life to.

How I would get there – how I would one day work for them or something along the lines of AI – I have no idea.  What I do know is that when I watch the videos above, when witnessing the magnitude on which AI exists, something in my chest gets tight and my heart rate quickens.   If I could work for something that would make me feel as such every day?  … Let’s hope I’m clever enough to do so.

I became a “Being Ñamoo” reader sometime last fall, amid my own Peace Corps preparations. I was living with my parents, only sporadically employed and recently invited to serve as a health volunteer in Senegal. In an attempt to feel productive and visualize what this would mean I had taken to trolling YouTube for volunteers’ videos, which is precisely how I ended up here. Finding Amanda’s video of her village and this blog was like seeing into my future; I read a few entries and thought, “Okay, I could see my Peace Corps experience looking something like this.”

Staying with Amanda in Fodé Bayo was like stepping into a storybook. How often do you stumble upon a random blog about someone’s tiny Peace Corps village in the African bush and then a few months later get to stay there with the very person whose face you first saw peeking through a YouTube channel on the other side of the world? I mean, come on. It made my whole demyst experience that much more surreal – as if it wasn’t enough to be walking through a postcard image of an African village, listening to Amanda and her fellow villagers chirp away in this wonderfully silly song of a language they call Mandinka.

I arrived at Dave’s compound in Dabo after a good 10-hour bus ride from the training center in Thiès, tired, hungry and dehydrated. Amanda showed up a few minutes later, shouting Pulaar greetings to Dave’s host mom, and got me and my stuff on a bike and on the road in a matter of minutes. Now, I will admit it has been a while since I did any serious biking, but I’m not in such bad shape either. That being said, keeping up with Amanda in the Senegalese sun (even late afternoon sun) along sandy bush paths with a backpack, purse and pillow tied precariously to the back of my bike was no easy feat. She was a great host and made sure to check in and take water breaks (especially after I heaved into the bushes on that first afternoon – oops), but as she herself put it to another volunteer a few days later, she tends to bike the bush paths rather “ferociously.” Add that to my list of goals for my service: learn to bike ferociously.

When we got to Fodé Bayo we were greeted by a hoard of smiling Mandinkas (as far as I can tell there is no other kind) and everyone wanted to know who this new white girl was and why her Mandinka was so terrible (ironic that I understood when they remarked that I didn’t understand Mandinka). The rest of my visit I did a lot of listening and watching, trying to master the cadence of village greetings while Amanda defended my limited language skills (I think she was just excited to have another Mandinka around even if I only speak baby-Mandinka). I would sit and watch her jabber away with the locals, wondering how and when I’ll ever be able to communicate well enough to do this job.  It’s such an enormous part of being a Peace Corps volunteer and there’s so much pressure and expectation placed on language acquisition, when I think about it too much I get dizzy. But somehow people make it through. Somehow Amanda has made it through. She’s got the gestures, the affirming tongue click, the ability to explain herself and make jokes. It’s amazing to watch. I have to just keep reminding myself that the Mandinka will come and meanwhile I’m just glad that these people are so friendly and warm and patient.

We spent our days hanging out village style, lounging under mango trees, drinking tea, meeting my people and then would bike back to Fodé Bayo in the evenings. I enjoyed being a wallflower (which is good because I’m sure there is much more of that to come), and in between we had our moments of excitement: dehydrated puking in the bushes, tasting my first cashew apple, collecting honey in the moonlight, Amanda’s tire exploding on the road to Mampatim, our chicken dinner trying to escape before we got it back to Fodé Bayo, joining all of the Mandinkas in the area for an all day all night religious celebration known as a Gamou and parading around in matching outfits.

But I think some of my favorite demyst moments happened in the quiet moments when Amanda and I were able to escape in English and get to know each other a bit. There was an element of passing the torch as her service is coming to a close just as mine begins and it was nice to pick her brain, to get to know Amanda instead of just hearing about Ñamoo (because she is a popular figure in our Mandinka community and I have a feeling they’ll be talking about her for a long time).

I install May 17th, not long after Amanda leaves Fodé Bayo, and will take over as the lone Mandinka volunteer in Kolda until her replacement comes in October. Amanda, I want you to know how much I appreciate all the work you’ve done to prepare my beautiful site and get another Mandinka in Kolda and to thank you for showing me the ropes. A baraka!

[For those interested in reading more about my demyst with Amanda, I wrote about other aspects of my experience for my own blog, which you can get to by clicking here.]

There are various topics I’ve started jotting down thoughts about over the past few weeks (and five half hashed out drafts in my blog to prove it), but now that I have 30 minutes to get a post up before my last stay in Fodé Bayo ever, where to start?  What to talk about?  I’ve been trying to put a bit more thought and effort into my blog posts as means of avoiding “English is my second language in Senegal” speak, but given the number of issues bouncing around in my head lately, I’ve had a difficult time sitting down and cohesively wording any of them (clearly).

Then there’s the whole bleh aspect of blogging on the “woe is me” theme.  Ironic I know, since usually PC blogs are about the PCV writing them; they tend to be a little me me me me me focused (as I know mine is, sorry, I’ve tried to talk about things around me and not just myself… don’t know how successful that’s been) – an egocentric theme in addition to the consistent feedback from the outside our PC lands that lives along the lines of “You’re so brave!” “You’re so selfless!”  “I could never do what you’re doing!”… PCV blogs can tend to get a little tiny violin-y.  So, since a lot of what has been on my mind as of late is about people leaving and the mental/emotional difficulties of leaving site and the shitstorm that is turning out to be my final project and general life snafus, I’ve held back from writing because I didn’t want to ride the Whiney Amanda Train for 800 words.  Did any of this paragraph make sense?

Whenever I’ve start writing about one of these such frustrations and stopped to review my draft, the first thing that comes to mind (besides “jesus you can’t write for beans anymore”) is usually “shut up get over it Amanda no one wants to read about your complaints.”  Blah blah blah you’re leaving site, it’s hard, you’ve been there for two years… blarbity blarb final project is indefinitely delayed as a metal shortage in Senegal is demanding that posts be ordered in person in Dakar, then driven all the live long way down to Kolda and the FB, which means interrupting your extension position to go back into vil to finish fence installation… blerg I’m having second thoughts about my extension – the job, but not just that – the other aspects of life that I want to embrace while living in Dakar as well… le tiny violin I really really want to take a vacation to some of the Cape Verde islands before home leave in July to visit some PCV friends there before they COS but with the 3rd year job and now having to return to the FB and the money issue of working on volunteer pay the past two years, it is looking less and less likely to happen…  le whiney whine my home leave is already getting stressful with all that needs to happen in five weeks: seeing people stretched all over the states, replacing everything I own since everything I own here is on its last leg: computer, drive, camera; I have no proper business clothing; I need Africa-sun-damaged moles removed; wanting to just disappear with each of my friends when I get home and live with them for a week in order to reconnect, feeling like I’m not going to have enough time to properly do any of the above… womp womp I’m leaving village and it’s going to be weird. Difficult. Hard.  Je m’excuse I can’t stretch my vocabulary beyond the middle school level so I’m having difficulties explaining exactly about how I’m feeling about this especially.

Begezus.  Even listening to myself write about all it makes me irritated and stressed out and uninterested, so I can only imagine how all of my woes read to you at home (or wherever, as I’ve recently learned that I have an audience a bit beyond the assumed loves at home and fellow PC or general rucksack wanders… er, hi!).

::exasperated sigh::  I really do have nothing to say, because I have too much to say, and delving into any one topic makes me want to go to sleep instead of thought spelunking.  There you go, deal with ill emotion as two three year olds do, brilliant Amanda.  Buh.

All of this mind clutter is starting to effect my normal run of life as well, causing me to make dufus decisions since I’m currently unable to completely focus on any one thing.  I left all of my important Close of Service medical documents who knows where in the PC office (ok not a huge deal but being that the office is similar to a black hole, could be a problem); I left my phone and headlamp (equivalent of my left and right arm in Senegal) in the Tamba house and will not be getting either back until May 3 or 4; then having these 17 itchy-as-all-get-out mosquito bites is like jamming your toe on when entering your apartment after a day where absolutely everything has gone wrong.  You know how the little things build up all day long, then something little (walk walk walk STUB) sends you off because it just is the icing on the metaphorical cake (cue: DAMNIT expletiveexpletiveexpletive).

And my village… I’ve been planning this big Mandinka festival, where we’re bringing in a Kora player (the traditional Mandinka guitar-like instrument) and a Mandinka drummer, cooking a ton of oily rice and maybe even killing a goat, and everyone’s getting dressed up and coming from every village I’ve ever worked with (I even got a fancy new outfit made)…. And that’s getting all chaotic as well (amplified by the fact that I don’t have my phone and can’t talk to my counterpart who’s helping to plan it all).  So at this point, I have no idea if the Kora player is even coming, if the other villages still think it’s going down and whatever whatever.

Besides doing something fun for the village for my leaving, I’ve been wanting to have this party so that volunteers from the area could come and experience Mandinka culture.  It’s been a two-year long running joke – my Mandinkaness and how I’m the only volunteer in Kolda who speaks Mandinka – how I can’t understand what everyone else as saying (ha ha ha ha HA), but all jokes aside, I really want to do something that my fellow volunteers who have grown to be my family outside of my village family can experience and enjoy as well.  Being the only Mandink means that I’m the only one experiencing this amazing culture, and I want them to be a part of it as well.

Right in line with how things are going though, none of the ten volunteers that I really want to come can attend.  Everyone’s in Dakar or on vacation or at Master Farmer trainings or on med leave or coming back the day after the fete.  Initially this had me really upset, but at this point I’m getting numb to shit flinging off the fan.  I had visions of a bunch of volunteers dancing around my village with my vil family, eating and drumming the night away, then staying up late in my hut talking and laughing… but that one’ll have to stay as a whistful apparition.   Assuming the party still happens, it’ll still be wonderful to have it with my family and village and all of our Mandinka relations.  There will just be no one there to photograph (photos of me in my village are such a rarity!  I was counting on someone coming to take some fun shots.  Oh well) but it’ll still be fun and I’m sure extremely memorable.

Oi spazzness. Please don’t take this too seriously either – I’m ok – I’m not curled up in a ball of frustration and depression.  The truthful picture is more along the lines of me grumbling and stomping around the Kolda house, sneering at my computer and pile of “to dos” everywhere. This post was hatched from the few of you who’ve been asking me about all that’s going on and how I’m dealing and so on and so forth. Yes – this is my less than eloquent attempt at answering those questions.  But as things seem to do here, I’m sure it’ll all work out and be just fine.  I’m just going through waves of thinking about everything too much and letting it all build up and up until I get overwhelmed…. and then it all just blends together and doesn’t bother me (writing this post has brought me to that point).  I’m sure by the time my iPod powered bike ride to the FB is finished, I’ll be back to Ñamoo.

A bientôt my friends, I shall see you on May 4, when I have moved out of my round little home in the bush for good.  Le big sad face.

 Just “See ya later.”

Swear-In Ceremony - April 25, 2009

As more than half of my training group (stage) will have left country by the end of the month, this post is in honor of them.   ”Lame Stage” my face, these people are among my most favorite in country.  As tough as it is to delete their names from my phone, I allieviate my sorrows in the knowledge that I will run in to all of them again some day.  (Oh awww.) 

Close of Service Conference - February 24, 2011

Yes, those are two bite marks in honeycomb fresh from the hive.

Delicious. Jealous?

Dear Mr. Stein,

I would like to thank you for your column.  If you’re bored, allow me to elaborate. If, as I assume, you are not, please skip to the last paragraph.

I’ve been a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural (“rural” meaning accessible by bike or foot, no running water, no iPads) Senegal for the past two years, and a TIME reader for significantly more.  I have to confess though, that it took almost my entire two years here to read your column.

Popular conceptions of the Peace Corps has most Americans viewing us in two camps: 1) as starry-eyed, young, dread-locked and somehow always slightly dirty, Chaco-wearing hippies, who sit in structures made of mud, engulfed in a cloud of ganja with a gaggle of locals, (ok, some of that is true); or 2) ultra-motivated, endlessly selfless depictions of what “young people today” need to be, who bound off into the bowels of the world engorged with the spirit of the American Dream, igniting the fires of freedom amongst the Starbucks-deprived masses, (this, most often, the view held by PCVs’ moms and dads).

I’ll let you in on a secret though: while we do indeed dabble in malaria prevention efforts, work twelve-hour days in orphanages, facilitate the set up of national parks, manage co-ops, and teach high school chemistry classes in local dialects, the rest of the time we’re bored shitless.  (Lie.  Not shitless, amoebas are a problem.)  Yes, the lives of the starry-eyed in the developing world can be surprisingly monotonous and lonely.

So much so, that we begin acquiring new habits – some unthinkable to us before our Peace Corps lives.  We neurotically complete Sudoku puzzles.  We hand-sew entire outfits.  We read early-90s romance novels.  We become bi-weekendly raging alcoholics.  We listen to the World Report on BBC for eight and a half hours because it’s the only radio station that speaks to us in English.  And 22 months into our service when we think we’ve exhausted all available reading material in our huts, we read Joel Stein’s column.

During my pre-PC era, I religiously speed-read TIME, pausing only to actually read Verbatim, the “your world this week” bit, and other relative (read: current event, political blah blah blah) articles, and completely skipped the second-to-last page.  I mean, it’s the second-to-last page for a reason, right?  Surely nothing that great can be on it…. flip flip flip Blackberry BEEP, onto the next affair in the young twenty-somethings day.

But now!  Having fallen victim to any accessible medium of English-language entertainment (i.e. your column), I have to say, Mr. Stein, you’re freaking hilarious.  No really, I love your column.  I bet I’ll even love it when back in America.  The three I’ve read so far have motivated me to dig through the dusty stacks of spider-ridden care-package periodicals in our regional transit house, just to flip directly the second-to-last page in hopes of seeing “Stein” across the top (no offense “Gibbs”).

So, thank you, Mr. Stein.  Though idle hours may have been the initial motivation, your wit will keep me reading until TIME damns you to name the Uncoolest Person of the Year from the electronic second-to-last pages of a blog.

Regards from your newest enthusiast,
Amanda Wybolt

Re: Fan mail

Thanks so much. I am hugely popular amongst the incredibly bored.

It’s your job to help people who need it. It’s my job to entertain people who help people who need it for 5 minutes every other week. I’m going God’s work.

Joel

Below is a photo of the ceramic candles that sit inside the filter.  The water must pass through them to get to bottom “Drink me!” section.  The candle on the right is one I wiped down with a rag.  The candle on the left is how both looked when I first took them out of the filter.

You can scratch that layer of gook right off with your fingernail EWW!

Gross sauce.  I mean, I’m still going to drink unfiltered water when traveling around, but this is pretty decent motivation to keep filtering it in site.

Four volunteers (including myself) are mulling about the house, wrapping up emails and packing our bags since most of us intend to head out early tomorrow morning; none of us see rando enter.  ”Hello,” an older sounding, deep voice from over my shoulder says.  Rando is walking down the main hallway of the Tamba house and continues to the middle of the common area where we are all sitting. He stops, he stares at us.  ”I was a volunteer here ten years ago, I just wanted to say hi.”

All four of us watched him walk into the back of the house without saying a word.  We’ve stopped what we’re doing and stare back at him for three long seconds.  I glance at my watch: 22:18. Internal dialogue: Dude, it’s 10:30 at night, why would you stop by the regional house now?   “Hi… we’re volunteers here… now,” Mika offers awkwardly as way to break the tension – tension I’m quite sure that rando didn’t notice at all as he continued to blankly gaze about the room.  Internal dialogue:  Can we help you?  What does this dude want? Where Are my headphones? Did I pack my toothbrush yet? I’m tired.

“So,” I say attempting a bit of causal banter, since I notice Charlene, Mika and Camille are not getting beyond their WTF stares anytime soon in order to start a conversation. “Where was your village – what brings you back here?”  Rando starts telling us about where he was and what he’s doing, and then falls into stereotype land.  ”When I was here, the road from Koumpentoum wasn’t even paved.  It would take ten hours just to get to Tamba.  Hey, [looking at Mika typing] do you have internet here?  We had to go to Dakar just to call America when I was here.”  Mika: “Oh.”  Cue awkward silence, averted stares.

We asked him what language he spoke while he was here and he said Bombera.  Except that he didn’t say Bombera, he said “Bam-be-ra” [rolled r], the way you pronounce it when you’re speaking Bombera to other Bomberas.  Moment of realization for the four of us in the room – rando is that guy – the one who when you’re having a conversation in English and you ask him what languages he speaks, says he speaks “Español” instead of just saying Spanish.  Douche bag.  I’m going to venture that when he had to travel his ten hours from Koumpentoum to Tamba it was also snowing, he was barefoot, and it was uphill both ways.  (Aside: I can guarantee that even if it was all bush path, it would be a feat to make the trip between Koumpentoum and Tamba take ten hours. Mika later guessed that he log-rolled the entire way in order for him to take that long.)

Rando then asks us where we are volunteers and Charlene tells him that she’s from Kolda, spending the day in Tamba to buy garden fence materials.  ”Why are you here to buy materials then?” rando asks. “Because it’s way cheaper here.  Like, it cuts 1/3 of the price,” Charlene explains.  ”Well don’t you think you should be supporting local business?” rando asks.

Continuing to collect my things and pack my backpack, I’d only been halfway listening to the conversation until this point.   Yet even only halfway listening, I was growing increasingly annoyed – who is this guy? – and now rando is pricking a nerve since I am here as well to buy materials for my fencing project.  My pride gets the better of me and I join the conversation.  ”Ideally, yes, we’d support local business in Kolda,” I begin.  ”Initially, I was buying all of my fencing supplies form a village 45 minutes away from mine in the bush to try to support a neighboring Mandinka site.  But the price was over 300,000 mil [about $625] more to buy from them, and the time to collect and put all the supplies together was substantially longer.  Since we’re using US AID SPA grant money to fund our projects, and there are about 200 other volunteers in country all applying for grants from the same money pool, we have to keep our budgets as low as possible.  Here in Tamba there’s a PC support guy with a truck who knows local metal workers, so he can get us the best price and transport the materials directly to our villages for free.  Though we’d all like to support businesses in our areas, it’s just not feasible to buy from them when the cost is that much different.  I explained this to the village that I was initially buying from three days ago when I told them I was coming here instead, and though they weren’t happy about it, they admitted that they would do the same thing.”

Rando considers what I said for a moment, and comes back with, “Well someone needs to let US AID know that they need to front the bill to support local economies.”  Rando is staring me down.  I still haven’t moved from behind my backpack.  Internal dialogue: Am I be scolded?  I’m tired.  Where are my headphones.  Wait, is he seriously suggesting saying that to US AID?  Has he ever worked with US AID?  Who the hell is this guy?   I can’t stop the deluge of words building up in my mind. “Right, but one of the biggest issues with local businesses in Senegal is repetition in the market and a misunderstanding of supply and demand in order for businesses to make themselves stand out so they can do well enough to make a profit instead of just continuing the floundering enterprise that they’ve always had.  So, buying from the local guys – when from a budget standpoint is nuts – just to be nice and support the local guys – if you ask me – can do more harm than good because it’s feeding a false image that their business is actually competitive.”  I know, I get long-winded when riled up about something.  Cue poignant drop it Amanda stare from Camille.

I continue anyway because I’m tired and impatient and rando has sufficiently gotten on my nerves.  ”To do so would mean Peace Corps funding less projects in the long run in order to pay through the nose to support Abdoulye with his village grillage maker, while 15k away in a market town grillage is half the price.”  Internal dialogue: That’s dumb. Who the hell are you anyway.  ”PC generally knows the prices for materials and will only approve our budgets when they see them mirroring these costs, so in order to get the job done, we came to Tamba.” Internal dialogue: Step off jackass, you do the best you can with what you have.  ”It’s either come here to buy supplies in order to be able to fund a project that will create a sustainable garden that will grow more nutritious food and hopefully create an income for the gardeners, or don’t get your project approved at all.”  Rando stares blankly at me some more.  More silence, another awkward pause.  Then his eyes seem to focus. He turns to Charlene as he is pushing buttons on his phone.  ”This is a video from where I was last week [Yemen I think he said].  See that – people are getting shot on the street,” Rando says.  What?  ”Wow, did you take this video – were you there?” Mika asks.  ”Oh no,” rando says, “someone gave this to me.  I was a few hours away.”  Really?  Mika exits the room and heads to the roof.  I completely stop listening to the conversation, resume packing my backpack and looking for my headphones.  Internal dialogue: Dude, rando, it’s time for you to bounce, we don’t want to talk to you anymore.

I have no idea what he said or did in the next three minutes, but four minutes later he was out the door.  As the guard closed the gate behind him, Mika, Charlene and I just stared at his disappearing figure. “What the hell just happened?” I ask.  Let the fuming begin.

“I respect that he served in the Peace Corps blah blah blah… but there’s so many fun things you can do when you’re old like, cruises, and matching sweat-pants suits.  But he came back to Tamba, which he pronounced ‘Tahm-ba…’” Mika begins.  ”And he compared our coming to Tamba to get fencing materials to shopping at Wal-Mart vs a local vendor, which completely makes no sense,” Charlene continues.  ”I’m pretty sure none of the boutiques here are anything like an international conglomerate.”

If rando would have stopped by five or seven hours ago, this story would have played out much differently.  Seven hours ago, there were nine volunteers running around the house plus a bunch of study abroad kids en route back to Dakar; everyone was talking and awake, music was blasting and piles of seeds were being sorted in the back porch.  If rando would have not just stood in the middle of our room telling us “When I was a volunteer” war stories then picking apart what we were doing in the house right then and going after the way we are doing our projects, this story would have played out much differently.  But he didn’t.  10:30 at night – who walks in a PC house to visit at 10:30 at night to make an unannounced visit?  ”I don’t know what I would do because I’m not old – would you do that if you were old?” Mika asks.  ”No dude!” I burst out, “because we were volunteers and would know better!  I’d show up at noon and get ceeb and buy everyone beers.”  ”Exactly,” Mika says.  Exactly.  We agree that that is what every normal visiting RPCV would do.  Ahh, voila, there in lies our answer.  Normal.

“I don’t know why I’m so riled up about this,” Mika says as he chats on the phone with another volunteer to relay the story.  ”UGH I am equally riled.  I have a headache now.  Who does that?”  I say as I sit down and open a random lap top.   I’m never around computers when weird shit like that happens in country, so I decide to take advantage of the situation and fresh memories.  I begin to type the most amusing parts of the episode in a blog draft, Mika continues discussing the situation on the phone: “I’m gonna go find him and fight him. I wish I were three inches taller.”

What a bizarre thing to happen. I wanted to be in bed three hours ago.  This is mental.  Why am I taking the time to blog about this?  Because it was too weird to keep to myself and writing about things helps get them off my mind, and clearly, we were all a bit too riled to go to bed after rando left.

“I’m having trouble blogging about this. I have no idea how to even begin to go through what just happened.  What do I even call this post?” I say to no one in particular as I attempt to coherently tell the story of rando weirdo.  ”How about, ‘Welcome to my house, who the fuck are you?’” Mika offers.

Yep, that about covers it.

April of 2010, Kellen, Dave, Chris Breezy, and myself  were called upon to teach the latest wave of health and environmental education trainees about the massive-esque mosquito net distributions that were taking place in southern Senegal.   You may remember these such distributions that I was involved in – they were the beginning of my malaria affair.  If I’d only known then…  Anyway, upon considering our task, we decided the best way to enlighten the trainees in the ways of net distributions would be via video, photos and song.   At 10pm we started the video snippet; at 4am the link below was the result.  Enjoy!

(If I ever have fast interwebs again I promise to upload the non-fuzzy version.)

Hello lovely friends and family and random internet wanders who’ve happened upon my blog,

The crew crossing the bridge into Kolda meme

As of this past Tuesday, the increasingly epic Kolda Donkey Rally trotted into Kolda, ending a six-day journey of over 100 kilometers, 12 causeries, 1 kilo of Moringa seeds, 17 volunteers, and of course 4 donkeys.  To be frank, we realized on about day two that maybe the idea of riding donkeys for six days across Kolda was in fact not the best idea (logistically, comfort-wise, realistically for full-gown 24-year-olds riding donkeys in 121 degree heat) that we’ve ever had… regardless, the purpose of parading PCVs on donkeys across Kolda to bring attention to the alarming burden of malnutrition in Kolda was achieved.

I joined the rally-spectacle on the 12^th, after the crew had been on the already been on the road for three days.  One look at everyone Saturday afternoon made it clear that exhaustion and dehydration were common companions throughout the rally, but the crew mustered up the enthusiasm and powered through that evening’s causerie in wonderful form.   Though of course some were better than others, we can honestly report that every one of the causeries (“health talks”) we led about malnutrition and how the leaves of the Moringa tree are one of the best tools for fighting vitamin deficiency went very well.  The leader of our brigade, Geoff, brought along his counterpart, Moustafa, who did most of the talking during our causeries.  Moustafa was was an absolute champion when it came to corralling villages we were visiting to attend our health talks via his megaphone and bucket-load of enthusiasm.  Combine three megaphones, four donkeys, and an average of nine volunteers at each causerie and you have enough of a circus to attract a small crowd in every village, be it simply out of curiosity as to what the hell we were doing or not.  The point is that a lot of people were reached all over Kolda as we made it rain Moringa seeds. Check and check.

1 of the 12 moringa causeries

As I’ve alluded, after slow days in the sun combined with scanty meals and continuously running on empty, it’s not surprising that before long we were explaining in Pulaar (well, everyone else was, I agreed along in Mandinka) to Moustafa what “slap happy” means as every late afternoon and evening turned into a delirious giggle-fest.  One evening, Moustafa contemplated Geoff and Curtiss’s definition of slap-happy as he glanced at Wilma, Cara, Mike and myself rolling around some mats, belly-laughing at our latest “ass” joke (you’d think after six days with the donkeys they would have gotten old, but they never did).  Moustafa slapped his hands together, nodded his head and looked seriously and Geoff and Curtiss: “Yes. Slap-hap-py. That is definitely what is happening,” he said as he picked up his mega-phone and said his new favorite English phrase we taught him over the course of the ride… “Oh my donkey!”  Enter fits of hilarity to all in the immediate area.

On a similar note, I want to end this post about the rally with a big THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the Gardens of Moringa Fund.  Over $1,600 was raised since we posted the Donkey Rally informational video on YouTube… which is amazing!  After covering the costs of the donkey rally, we have enough money in the fund to finance eleven small projects.  To refresh everyone on the ideas behind the Gardens of Moringa Fund: money will be used from the fund to support small-scale projects that pertain to Moringa; project costs must not exceed $150 and must include an intensive Moringa leaf bed and a causerie on the health benefits of the leaves.   In an organization where there often seems to be no medium between large-scale grants and volunteer-funded initiatives (difficult when we aren’t paid as much as stipend to get by each month), the Gardens of Moringa Fund will enable a lot of great projects to happen on the grassroots level the country over.  So again, thank you!  And remember that any time your change-purse gets a tad too heavy, you can donate to the country fund and designate the money to go to the Gardens of Moringa fund.  Hooray!

Unfortunately, none of the video footage we shot during the rally is at all pertinent to the actual rally and more for the ralliers’ amusement, so I do not have another YouTube snippet for you all to see.  Instead, and as usual, below is a collage of photos from my time with the Donkey Rally.    Enjoy!

Charlene climbs a Moringa tree to gather seeds. Photo by Curtis McCoy

Kelly, Wilma, Cara, Charlene, Mike, & Mike breaking open Moringa seed pods. Photo by Curtis McCoy

The long road of the Kolda Donkey Rally

9am Breakfast after a 6am start

1 of the 12 moringa causeries, Nebedaye is a local name for Moringa. Photo by Curtis McCoy

Mike challenging some local kids to a wrestling match between causeries. Photo by Curtis McCoy

The local kids kicking Mike's butt. 13 against 1 will do that. Photo by Curtis McCoy

Heading into Wilma's village, our stop for the night.

Me testing my balance trying to get on my bike one morning. Three bikers carried all the baggage for the donkey crew. Photo by Cara Steger

Off bring and early each morning, bikers and donkey riders (walkers) steady on down the national highway in Kolda. Photo by Cara Steger

Mom and daughter listen to one of the causeries

Mike looks on as Kelly and Cara nap between causeries. Photo by Curtis McCoy

Another day ends as we roll into our host village for the night. Photo by Curtis McCoy

Me feeling the crazy-slap-happy we indulged in at the end of each day.

Wilma, me & Cara: the bike crew with our heaviest loads the last day of the rally! Photo by Jason Haack

Mike and Wilma (and Jason's dog) rejoicing at the Kolda-ho! sign (misleading though as Kolda meme was still an hour away). Photo by Curtis McCoy

Glory banner as we crossed the bridge into Kolda meme! Photo by Pam Pratt

Kelly and her puppy Kindi during one of her stops by Fode Bayo

Enter the formation of odd-couples the country over.  Take me for example.  My neighbors?  The one who lives 5k away, Kelly – she and I are not  people who would normally gravitate towards each other.  In social settings Kelly and I are not the same flavor of crazy, and since in PC you almost always only meet other volunteers in social settings, I feel as if Kelly and I would never have crossed paths, (we’ve discussed this, she agrees).  Now, as Kelly and my site-mate relations have been forced upon us for over a year, I love her.  Kelly is imperative to my happiness in Team Dabo land (“Team Dabo” is what we’ve come to call the villages that exist around my road-town as their social center).  Now, when I don’t see or talk to Kelly for about a week, I start to get ancy.  What is she doing? What if something new happened in her life that I don’t know about?  On top of that, I have yet to tell Kelly of my latest PC middle school romance account!  Cue texting frenzy.  The first time I visited Kelly in her village, I was back en route to the FB in twenty minutes.  Now when we pop by each other’s sites “just to say hi,” visits rarely end within a two-hour time frame. Her resseau is as crummy as mine; I foresee separation anxiety when I move to Dakar in May.

My other neighbor?  When I first met Dave, my initial reaction was, “Who the hell does this kid think he is?”  I was immersed in a lovey-reunion with some stage-mates that I hadn’t seen in months, and he bounded into our circle, loud and talking over conversation with something none of us cared about (I know this is rich coming from the queen of tact and quiet).  Needless to say, Dave annoyed me.  And he knew it too.  “Amanda Wybolt hates me,” was a phrase that got back to me a few times as Dave told many of our mutual friends at the annual Health/Environmental Education Volunteer Summit.  (Yes, PC social circles exist on a similar plane to those of 7th grade.)

I didn’t hate Dave.  I was just uneasy about how to approach our situation.  A situation that, normally in the “real world” (as we often refer to existence outside of PC land), I would have just avoided Davie due to initial social mis-blend.  But as the PC powers at be decided that we would be friends, we bumbled through our first few months together.  It was the whole, he-knew-that-I-knew and I-knew-that-he-knew-that-I-knew but we’re both going to avoid it altogether type situation.  So, we existed with a cloak of cordiality around us, while I was always half on the lookout for a good moment to have a “talk” with him about “us.” (Does this feel like high school to you yet?)

Fact of the matter was that Dave, love him or not, was part of my PC family, and I knew after the few site emergencies I’d had before Dave’s arrival, how important it was to keep your volunteer-family relationships working well.

As time moved on in the PC world, ill and awkward feelings between Dave and I dissipated.  Short of the long is that Dave has also become an integral and enjoyable part of my PC life.  He’s my road-town rock.  Luumo (weekly traveling market near my road town) afternoons now pass enjoyably under the 121 degree sun as Dave and I chatter about books, the news, work, and of course PC social circles and snafus. (It’s almost impossible when volunteers are together to not talk about other volunteers.  I mean, there are only 200 of us in country. Village stories do eventually all sound the same.)  Dave and I never ended up having the “talk,” (indeed if Dave ever reads this it’ll be the most forward and public reference to our awkwardness we’ve ever exchanged… er, “Hi Dave!”), but now I really don’t think we need to.  Truth be told, I could have gotten on through my two years without a friend in my road town, likewise Dave most definitely does not need me to function well in his PC life, but there is something that we add to each other’s time here, and I am genuinely happy to have Dave’s company and support in my PC life.

Where is this all coming from?  In its initial draft-stages, buzzing around in my mind while biking around Kolda, this blog post was actually supposed to be about the Kolda Donkey Rally, not Amanda’s reflections on the PC social circles.  I’ll try to re-trace the path my thinking took, (WARNING: uncharted and chaotic territory!).

The nights before I joined the donkey crew, I was receiving texts from Kelly (who was already participating in the Donkey Rally) containing wild and hilarious ideas that she and other volunteers had come up with for the Cinco de Mayo party we’re hosting in Kolda. (Veterans of my blog will be familiar with the fact that each region of Senegal traditionally hosts a party for volunteers country-wide, though Kolda has lacked its own fête until recently.  We’ve agreed on Cinco de Mayo and I’m head of the committee to make it happen.)  “Can Mike, Charlene and I be in charge of drinks?  We want to mix Fosters Clarks in baggies to have multi-colored beverages!” and “WE NEED A GIGANTIC TWISTER BOARD!!” were some messages I received.  Amidst laughing (and agreeing with) the ideas, I grew increasingly eager to join the rally.  Clearly, every night after trotting (or peddling) along in the hotass sun and talking to anyone they came upon about Moringa, the donkey ralliers spent the evenings unwinding in a clutter of laughter and random discussion until they all fell asleep.  I was excited to take up with the crew.

I was excited to join not just because the Moringa Donkey Rally was a Kolda region-wide event and from a work perspective I wanted to attend; not just because the idea of riding donkeys over 100k with nine other toubabs was too much of a hilariously odd-ball idea for me to resist being a part of; I was excited to join because I genuinely enjoy the company of all the volunteers in Kolda and was excited to spend a few days with everyone.

Getting ready to join the crew this past Saturday, my anticipation got me thinking.  How may other regions feel this way about each other?  I’ve always loved Kolda because due to its location, we’re isolated from administrative support more than most regions in country and therefore rely on each other for everything.  We always joke about how much Kolda is a family more so than any other region, but it’s true.  In recognizing my enthusiasm to spend 72 sweaty, sleeping-on-the-ground, slightly dehydrated and heat-exhausted hours with the same nine volunteers, I felt lucky to be among such company.

Corny, corny, corny, I know give me a break I’m bound to get a bit reflective and mushy as my final six weeks in Kolda tick by.  Everyone says one of the best and worst things about PC life is how much time we have to think.  Agreed, but still -  my warm-fuzzy hours of Kolda reflection have led me to be immeasurably thankful to have lived in Kolda, especially among the volunteers that I have for the past two years.  No matter how amazing the FB is, without the good times I’ve had among the Kalabandits (what we call ourselves – we have shirts in addition to our Christmas card) I am well aware that I would not have made it through these past two years a quarter bit as sane as I have.

Curtiss, Geoff, Cara and Martin unwinding the last afternoon of the rally

It’s not just that the Kolda kids are fun either.  They are, but it’s more than that.  I’ll explain via a story.  My first afternoon with the Donkey Rally, I helped (read: held visuals since the causeries was in Pulaar) with a causerie led by my friend Geoff.  During the causerie, the doctor who works at the health post in my road town sat in on half of the talk and in the middle of it all, interrupted to hand out Plumpy Nut to all the attending mothers.  Now, Plumpy Nut is great – nutritious and fantastic for malnourished kids for sure, but being that the point of our Moringa causerie was to show people that one of the best tools for fighting malnutrition is in their very backyards in the form of the Moringa tree, the doctor handing out Plumpy Nut didn’t gel too well with the message of our causerie.   The doctor passed out the Plumpy Nut while Geoff’s counterpart talked about the vitamins in Moringa and Geoff’s face darkened.  “We’ll talk about Plumpy Nut later,” he mumbled to me during a visual-aid change.

After the causerie, while all ten of the attending volunteers for the Dabo leg of the rally sat around chatting, Geoff discussed the negative aspects surrounding Plumpy Nut and its distribution.  Listening to Geoff spew was one of the many moments over my two years in country that I found myself amused and impressed by my PCV company.  As fatigued, sun-burned and hungry Geoff was, his arguments were well sorted enough to be sent back to UNICEF before they planned the logistics for their next Plumpy Nut distribution.

I don’t mean to come across sounding so surprised that my PCV company is clever.  I did not assume that the PCVs I would come in contact with during my time here would be dumb.  I would be lying though, if I were to say that I didn’t presume that there would be a lot of the crunchy hippie PC stereotypes from the 60s and 70s mulling about.  I can now tell you that while I have met a few of those, most of the PCVs I’ve become very fond of here are more on the critical, sharp, up-to-date, brilliant, creative side of the spectrum. They’re smart and resourceful. And they’ve left their two years here to do incredible things such as work for the ICRC, attend prestigious international programs at universities in Geneva and New Zealand, at Carnegie Mellon, Columbia and Harvard.  They’ve invented sustainable technologies used by volunteers the country-over.  And amidst piles of Senegalese burgers stuffed with friend and bottles of Flag (the local brew), they’ve embarked on debates ranging from not just development but also international politics, policy-making, human rights, and philosophy.

So to bring it back, Kolda volunteers are not just fun.  Peace Corps volunteers are not just fun.  They’re smart.   As I meet PCVs around Senegal (as small as our PC social world is, I still feel like I am always meeting new PCVs), I’m continuously impressed as some of  their intelligence and clarity of view pierces through their crazy personalities and Senegalese-grown quirks.  Being in the company of people like this make me excited to see the organizations and initiatives that they will one day run. Hokey as it may sound, they really are people who will change the world.

How does this all relate back to the Donkey Rally? Well, the Donkey Rally, regardless of whether it was the best malnutrition intervention we’ve ever coem up with or not, is a perfect example of a crazy idea that grew into a creative way to get people to focus on a big problem in Kolda.

It is an example of one of the things that is invigorating about working with people in the PC community.  While most jobs pride their employees on how much they can improve the status-quo, here imagination is embraced and manipulated into legitimate development interventions. Ingenuity is the name of the game, and it’s a game that’s re-carving levels of wellness on both teams.

Sargent Shriver on the cover of TIME in 1963

I’m currently sifting through Sargent Shriver’s biography.  Not to (again) get cliché, but it’s a really inspiring read.  Shriver was a tornado of creativity and a fascinating leader.  As I read about him, it became clear how much of his geniusly chaotic methods of problem solving that laid the framwork for how the Peace Corps would operate are still alive in the ways the organization runs today.  Similarly striking, is how much Shriver’s methods are embodied in many of the PCVs I’ve met (notably though unbeknownst to most of them). To illustrate directly from the book: “the [Peace Corps] under Shriver’s direction never lost the anything-is-possible creative anarchy – a mixture of idealism, naiveté, and brilliance that had characterized it from the beginning. The early Peace Corps didn’t cut red tape so much as shred it.”  (Sarge, Stossel, p 211)   Reading that sentence was a compelling moment for me, as it is a pretty similar description of most successful PCVs I know.

What I noticed in reading about Shriver and the founding seeds of the PC is what I love recognizing in the PCV community.  I honestly didn’t think when I entered the PC that I would come out as one of the PC’s (what I always viewed as clichéd) spokes people/advocates, but I can’t help it.  Some of the people I’ve had the opportunity and enjoyment to work with in this organize just stun and inspire the hell out of me.

When Chris started telling me about the malaria initiative he wanted me to extend to work with, the selling point (though he didn’t know it at the time) came days after his initial idea drop. What really got me interested about possibly spending a year on this project was when he told me I’d be handling PCV communications in the 25 target countries involved in the initiative.  Immediately my attention was grabbed.  Talking to PCVs in order to  gather their stories, their gripes, their ideas and creative chaos that kept them amused during the day, was the type of work I could immerse myself in immediately.  Collecting  and re-sharing these such thoughts throughout the PC community is an aspect of my extension position that is similar to what motivated to take over the PC Senegal’s newsletter about 15 months ago (besides enjoying playing with publisher).  Often, when talking to vols in country about especially great ideas they had, I wanted to plaster them on the front page of our newsletter to scream: “Your PCV community is brilliant! Read this and take it 40 steps further and who knows what we’ll be able to do.”  Now that is more or less one part of what I will be doing working with the malaria initiative, except that ideas will be exchanged over every PC country on the continent.  !!!  Are you excited too?  Because the potential in such an exchange is what will be getting me out of bed every morning in Dakar come this May.  That and the fact that they sell mandarins year-round on every other street corner.

And yet… though from a work perspective I am endlessly inspired by my peers and leaders here, I often find myself feeling something missing on a personal level.  I’ve met people that I know I will keep in my life for as long as I can, but to make an obvious  statement, it’s not the same.  I’ve yet to meet anyone here that has struck a chord in the same key as the one in which my closest friends from home virtuoso.  Back home, we were not only a family but also deeply tied to each other on a profoundly personal and emotional level.  I read once that you should be worried about your life-state if you can’t name at least five people who would be willing to give blood for you at a moment’s notice, and though there are some PCV friends I’d give blood for in a minute and I know vise versa, the first people that pop to my mind when considering that statement are from my “old life” (pre-PC era).

I realize that going through the turmoils and joys together that made up the past six years in Boston and Chicago inevitably created close relationships due to circumstance yaddayaddayadda, but I suppose what strikes me the most is that gut feeling of a glow you get when you know you’re with people who are your closest friends, and the deep absence of that in my life I’ve felt these past two years.  I’ve met a few people in the PC community that I could see a likewise friendship forming , but as I displayed in the beginning of this novel-of-a-post, relationships here are very much limited to our location.  So, be there a few other people in country that I may have gotten close to or not, I never saw them enough to have those relationships really develop.  Especially since PCV social environments do not lend much to creating those intimate personal relationships when there are always fifty other PCVs around.  This is where I’m reminded of a saying common in the PC community, that you’ll never feel so lonely while surrounded by so many people.

I realize that I’m in a small camp with this sentiment.  Before I even came to country, PCVs I knew around the world told me how I would meet the best friends of my life and that the most incredible type of people that are in the PC.  It’s true – PCVs are a striking specie of human being that I am grateful to live among, but when I heard them back in Boston, I remember the words resonating oddly with me.  I spent my four years at university and in the city surrounded by some of the most inspiring and closest friends I’ve ever had – really, that I’ve ever had – and the thought that the 200 people I was about to immerse my life in were going to be “better” than any friend I’d previously made seemed bizarre to me.  I assumed that most people who made statements like that had never had friends like I do in their pre-PCV lives; I’ve found this more or less to be true.

Looking at my past two years here and the year I’m about to embark on, part of me aches to go home to them, for wherever they are is very much where I understand my home to be.  I cannot articulate this longing – how when I think of them too much my thoughts go numb and fuzzy and sounds seem to blend together.  It’s that knot-in-the-stomach, shortness-of-breath feeling.  How can I be away from such vital friendships for another year?  Do I think that these types of friendships will grow in this next year?  Part of me does, or wants to, but I don’t know.  I recognize too that I’m a bit conservative when it comes to opening up in the ever-shifting social environment that is the Peace Corps.  I guess the theme of this last stream of thought is just that, as inspired and awed I am of people here, I yearn for my loves from home so much that sometimes it’s hard to focus.

Still, in the spirit of being motivated and confident in my upcoming job,  I’m steadily growing more at peace with my decision to stay here another year.  The student loans won’t get paid off any time soon but my job will not only be changing lives but also will set me up in a far more competitive career-plane than I’m currently in… right?  Right.  Year three?  Le sigh… yes please.