by the way, we're real volunteers now!

The other day I experienced for the first time the phenomenon of having a stranger profess his love for me at first sight. I was getting photos developed and waiting to pay when this guy standing next to me in the shop starting talking pretty smooth, asking about my photos, like “who was this, where did I live, where was the picture of my husband, oh didn’t I have a husband? didn’t I want a husband?” and so on and so forth, even after I told him I had a boyfriend in Dakar (as here it’s advisable to fabricate boyfriends). He then proceeded to proclaim that he had fallen in love with me right then and there, to which I laughed, and said, “Oh really? Just like that?” And he said, really, just like that, until I laughed again, for lack of better vocabulary in Wolof to dispute his sudden attraction. Finally the guy behind the counter came up with my change, and I took my photos and left with my friends, to whom I recounted the story minutes later, on the street, as they hadn’t been paying attention. When I told them, amused, how he had “fallen in love” with me, just like that, my one dear friend replied, “Well of course he did.” ☺

Otherwise, much goings-on and upheaval has occurred since last I wrote. Swearing-in in Dakar, at the American ambassador’s house, party in Thiès for our host families, with dinner and dancing and ceremony, moving out of our host families, saying goodbye to our friends who have already left for their distant sites. Friday night was hard, after celebrating the end of training with our families and friends, watching my friends pack and re-pack to be ready to leave early the next day to get out to their sites. Most of us are “installing” on Tuesday or Wednesday, but those further away from Thiès were advised to arrive earlier than those days in order to buy supplies and so on, so some people left Saturday morning, some this morning, and the last two groups, which include myself, will leave Thiès on Tuesday, early.

But if Friday night was hard, saying goodbye to my friends, the Saturday morning trip out to our villages was downright painful. Loading up the car, I didn’t know what to say to express my gratitude to my family for all that they had done for me in these two months. “Dinaa newat, fi ba netti weer, Inch’Allah,” I told them, over and over. “I’ll come back, three months from now, God willing,” and they shook their heads saying three months was a long time. I told them I’d be back for three more weeks then, for more training. “Dinaa dellusi pur netti ayu bes, pur beneen formation,” I said, and then when no one was asking me anything more, we stood for a long time, it seemed, not really looking at each other. None of us said anything, while we waited for our driver to load up all the bags - mine, along with those of the other two new volunteers who had been living in that village. There was so much more I wanted to say then to my sisters and brothers - but the sight of my older sister trying to keep her eyes dry with a handkerchief made it hard to say anything at all. I thanked my mother, and my father, the chief of the village, and as I was getting ready to get into the car, my little two-year-old sister ran up to me and hugged me, one more time. As the Peace Corps car drove us away I felt my heart give out, and as soon as my family was out of sight I could not stop the tears from coming. As we sped down the road back to Thiès, one of the other new volunteers remarked, “If it’s this hard after two months, what’s it going to be like after two years?”