ch-ch-ch-changes

Christmas. New Year's. Family from the States. Friends from Senegal. Back to work, continuing to figure out what that means, where I belong, and what I can make of it.

Looking back at 2008, the only word I can think to use is "amazing"- to see where I was when it started, and look at where I am now. I have spent the last ten months of my life on a continent that just a year ago I had only seen in my dreams. And who I am has irrevocably changed because of it.

I am witnessing my own transformation as it takes place within me. Slowly yet surely it progresses. I know that as this year begins, the way that I live it will be different than the way I lived last year, and the person I am now is not the same one who left Philadelphia so many months ago.

I know now that I personally will not ever be able to save the world. But I don't think that means it's useless to try. I think what each of us can do to help "save the world" is to do what we each can do best, and in our own ways contribute to the communal bettering of our planet. I think this world needs thinkers, and doers, and planners, and behind-the-scenes'ers. It needs communicators, sharers, artists and idea-men. But most of all it needs to keep thinking that we can. (Obama shout-out!) But seriously, that is the greatest conclusion that I've come to so far here: that people who think there are no options are not going to try and go anywhere. It's those who don't stop at today, who keep looking to tomorrow, who are going to wake up each day more hopeful than the last, with the determination to do something with that day.

I'm not trying to claim any great gained wisdom from a few months of living overseas in a developing country, but I'm just giving you my perspective, because that's why you're reading this in the first place, isn't it? My dad and sister's visit to me here between Christmas and New Year's really showed me just how different my take on things is now than what it was. Some things that would have bothered me a year ago I consider standard now, and my priorities have shifted. Much of who I am is of course fundamentally the same, but there are things about me now that I hope will never change back, even after my service here is over.

After I dropped off my family at the airport late on New Year's Eve, I got back to the regional house and soon tucked myself into bed. When I woke up later that day I sat down to write a letter to the sister I had just sent back to America. Here is part of it.

(written Jan. 1, 2 pm)
…

Maybe I’ll go rejoin my friends now. They’re still watching “The Office.” I know. It's addicting.
And it makes me look at my henna’ed hand, think of [my town, my host mom, my counterpart, my work partners,] the school, the market, the sept-places ... - and thank the heavens that that’s not me there in that office.
For all the times I complain here, for all the comforts I don’t have, for all the people who piss me off - what I’m doing here is actually LIVING.
This is LIFE.
I am ALIVE, and doing what I set out to do here: challenging myself to go further than I ever have before, growing, maturing, changing my perspective and discovering what I’m really made of. I look at this year stretched out ahead of me, and I am hopeful. I think I have what it takes to do this now, and I am excited. I am also becoming more forgiving of myself, and more accepting of small triumphs. Nine months is no small feat. There may be another year and a half before Peace Corps says my time is up here, but there are so many ways I see in which I have already succeeded in what I set out to do.
…

2009, here we come.