Closing Thoughts

my backyard! so green

This is my final blog post. Before I get started, I first need to say THANK YOU to everyone that contributed to the latrine construction project. We ended up raising twice the amount needed, with extra funds going towards other Peace Corps/Senegal projects. Secondly, I want to reiterate that this blog concerns my opinions and my experiences in Senegal, nothing more and nothing less.

It is strange to sit down to write a blog post in a comfortable chair with a cool can of seltzer in my hand – luxuries I could’ve only dreamed of until recently. I’ve been living in the US again for almost three months now and the exhilaration of the produce section of the store is just now manageable. This summer I have luxuriated in the opportunity to spend time with my family and old friends in my home state. I have appreciated trees, air conditioning, and blueberries like never before.

public transportation: not comfortable

Living in Senegal was immensely challenging for me in various ways. On the surface, there were the basic discomforts of life: carts drawn by donkeys, 110 degree weather, chickens invading my bedroom, and sand everywhere. When I wasn’t sitting on a concrete floor or in the sand, I’d be lying on my one inch foam mattress. On special occasions I got to sit on a hard plastic chair. But I got used to those things. What took me longer to get over was the constant feeling of living defensively. I used sunscreen to protect skin from burning, vitamins to prevent micronutrient deficiencies, a mosquito net to avoid malaria, and water, so much water. I often worried I would drown myself trying to stay hydrated.

time to play!

Of course there were daily perks to balance out the struggle of life without sofas. In Senegal I never had to hurry – anywhere, ever. Keeping track of the time was a hard habit to break, but I started planning my days around “before lunch” or “around twilight” instead of specific times. And I had endless free time to read, write, draw, climb trees, chat with ladies, play with kids, and process everything I was doing and seeing. Losing track of time, I found myself more grounded in the moment in which I was living; exactly and wholly there and no where else.

the biggest Mouride holiday in Senegal - Google it

Another luxury I had was the opportunity to live without internet. I loved the resourcefulness that I developed in Google’s absence and the freedom of not being able to check my phone throughout the day. But more significantly, I was exhilarated by the idea that I was living beyond the internet. That I have a wealth of information in my head that has not been digitized and itemized online as a data set. I loved speaking a language that still requires human translators and celebrating holidays that don’t have Wikipedia pages. When I had questions, I talked to people to get information instead of asking the internet. Living in a community that hadn’t yet heard of Google helped me reassess my own habits with technology and appreciate my relationships with people instead of devices.

Little Camel Ride in the Desert

My favorite part of life in Senegal by far was the feeling that I had achieved my number one childhood goal of time travel. Exchange with other cultures has always fascinated me, yes, but with other time periods? Too good to be true. Yet, in Senegal my main methods of transportation were a) walking and b) horse drawn carts. When my parents visited they noted that seeing satellites in the night sky reminded them of their childhoods. At home my mothers gathered firewood to build cooking fires and we hung our laundry on lines to dry after handwashing it. We butchered our own meat and I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder watching kids inflate the sheep’s lungs like a balloon and play with them. Just like Laura, I felt the thrill of going into town for a piece of candy and fabric shopping for a new dress. Instead of Little House on the Prairie, you could say I was living a Little Hut in the Desert story.

village sunrise: extreme beauty

My two years in Senegal involved a lot of extremes. Extreme mental effort to speak Wolof all day every day. Extreme weather conditions from hot to hotter to sand storms and flash floods. Extreme emotional vacillations the likes of which I have neither felt before nor since. I was pushed to and past my limits regularly both physically and mentally, which means I now have an intimate knowledge of myself, my boundaries. And living a Wolof life taught me when to push back and how hard. I joined Peace Corps because I always felt that the world was too big a place for me to only experience one way of life - with one environment, one language, one family, one religion. Senegal truly was a window into another world for me and I wouldn’t take it back for anything.

jerejef, waa senegal ak waa ngar