Until I post something else real about me, check out this video featuring my friend Jared! We trained together and he has been one of my closest neighbors here.
Jared on YouTube
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
These are the days
How do you start to say goodbye?
To people and places, faces and names. To habits and routines. To a job that is not just a line of work, but a lifestyle. To two years of friendships, familiarity, struggles and frustrations. To an identity - me, the Peace Corps volunteer.
I’ve had to say a few goodbyes already, to other volunteers who came into country with me two years ago. I will be one of the last ones to leave from my original training group, flying out on May 23rd to meet up with my sister to spend five days in Iceland, Inch’Allah, as long as the ash cloud clears up over Europe so I can actually get there…
But if all goes as planned I will leave Senegal that Sunday night, and then fly to New York with my sister on Friday the 28th. After so much time, I am actually coming home.
I admit I borrowed the Iceland idea from one of my best friends in country, who’s going there as part of her COS trip (as long as meteorologic conditions permit) after a somewhat whirlwind trip of continental Europe. In fact she’s been gone a week already, having called me last Thursday from the airplane as she was sitting waiting to take off. After being one of my closest American neighbors for two years, now I don’t know when I might see her again, especially since she’s lined up her next job in Alaska.
The permanence of parting is starting to sink in.
With only a month remaining until my own COS date, I am myself preparing to go away. Step by step, each day I move closer to readiness. With every report I write, each belonging I set aside to give away, and every day that passes, my head is lighter. But I know the paperwork and the physical baggage will be the easy part of all this.
I apologize if I haven’t been vigilant about keeping up to date with what I’ve been doing, if these episodes of my life have been sporadically posted and seem to lack rhyme or reason. I could write another post on my recent activities - about traveling to the southeast corner of the country to help translate for a free eye clinic, about celebrating Easter at the mayor of Joal’s house with my Muslim family and their Catholic relatives, or about the week I spent hosting the volunteer-in-training who will replace me at site after I leave next month. But this is my blog, my space for expression. And as another one of my dearest friends who I’ve already had to say goodbye to likes to say, “I do what I want.”
So instead of posting about any of that, when I was thinking about how to how to write about leaving, this song came to mind. Maybe you’ll think it’s cheesy, but I dedicate it to the influence and importance of friends, near and far. Especially friends who love cheese.
"These are the days" (10,000 Maniacs)
"These are the days"
So few of them left to me here. Only 17 more until I leave my site, then another 14 until I leave the country. Thirty-one days. One month - after 25. In my adult life I’ve never lived in one place or worked a job for as long as I have here. It just makes leaving this all the more daunting.
"These are the days we’ll remember"
I am trying to take everything in these last weeks, the sights and sounds and smells of this now familiar place. I’m taking time with my host family and friends, went swimming twice this week after so many days of forgetting I live at the beach, and am reminding myself of the reasons I’ll be sad to leave.
"Never before and never since, I promise / will the whole world be warm as this"
I woke up sweaty from my afternoon nap and had trouble sleeping last night when the power went out. Yesterday the dry harmattan winds were in full force, sweeping the sand up into the air and intensifying the oven grade temperature. But even if I won’t miss the physical heat, I will feel the loss of the kindness of hearts, that warmth of welcome that constitutes the famous “teranga” of the Senegalese.
"And as you feel it / you’ll know it’s true / that you / are blessed and lucky"
I have had the opportunity to experience so much here, and have gotten encouragement along the way from so many sources. Getting to not only see this country, but integrate into this different culture and way of life, has been an adventure for which I will be forever grateful.
"It’s true / that you / are touched by something / that’ll grow and bloom"
I hope that what I have learned here will stick with me, that I will be able to move on from here to take the best and worst of this time to push me to continue to develop and evolve.
"You"
Who I am has been forever affected by this experience. It seems cliché, but it is nevertheless true. As I move on from here, I will take Ngoné Ndiaye with me, even as I return to a place where I am known by another name. It’s not that I feel I spent two years being someone else - but maybe that in being here, I discovered another part of me.
---
After writing this, I stumble up the sandy street under a half-full moon to the fruit stand at the edge of the road, buy bananas for tomorrow’s breakfast and take in the warm evening breeze. Back at my family’s house I take a bucket bath to cool off from the day, put on a light dress and listen to my sisters out in the courtyard playing with the neighbor’s baby, singing and sharing the day’s gossip. I take a chair out to join them, thinking that all too soon, my life will be different from this. So for then, I remember these days.
To people and places, faces and names. To habits and routines. To a job that is not just a line of work, but a lifestyle. To two years of friendships, familiarity, struggles and frustrations. To an identity - me, the Peace Corps volunteer.
I’ve had to say a few goodbyes already, to other volunteers who came into country with me two years ago. I will be one of the last ones to leave from my original training group, flying out on May 23rd to meet up with my sister to spend five days in Iceland, Inch’Allah, as long as the ash cloud clears up over Europe so I can actually get there…
But if all goes as planned I will leave Senegal that Sunday night, and then fly to New York with my sister on Friday the 28th. After so much time, I am actually coming home.
I admit I borrowed the Iceland idea from one of my best friends in country, who’s going there as part of her COS trip (as long as meteorologic conditions permit) after a somewhat whirlwind trip of continental Europe. In fact she’s been gone a week already, having called me last Thursday from the airplane as she was sitting waiting to take off. After being one of my closest American neighbors for two years, now I don’t know when I might see her again, especially since she’s lined up her next job in Alaska.
The permanence of parting is starting to sink in.
With only a month remaining until my own COS date, I am myself preparing to go away. Step by step, each day I move closer to readiness. With every report I write, each belonging I set aside to give away, and every day that passes, my head is lighter. But I know the paperwork and the physical baggage will be the easy part of all this.
I apologize if I haven’t been vigilant about keeping up to date with what I’ve been doing, if these episodes of my life have been sporadically posted and seem to lack rhyme or reason. I could write another post on my recent activities - about traveling to the southeast corner of the country to help translate for a free eye clinic, about celebrating Easter at the mayor of Joal’s house with my Muslim family and their Catholic relatives, or about the week I spent hosting the volunteer-in-training who will replace me at site after I leave next month. But this is my blog, my space for expression. And as another one of my dearest friends who I’ve already had to say goodbye to likes to say, “I do what I want.”
So instead of posting about any of that, when I was thinking about how to how to write about leaving, this song came to mind. Maybe you’ll think it’s cheesy, but I dedicate it to the influence and importance of friends, near and far. Especially friends who love cheese.
"These are the days" (10,000 Maniacs)
"These are the days"
So few of them left to me here. Only 17 more until I leave my site, then another 14 until I leave the country. Thirty-one days. One month - after 25. In my adult life I’ve never lived in one place or worked a job for as long as I have here. It just makes leaving this all the more daunting.
"These are the days we’ll remember"
I am trying to take everything in these last weeks, the sights and sounds and smells of this now familiar place. I’m taking time with my host family and friends, went swimming twice this week after so many days of forgetting I live at the beach, and am reminding myself of the reasons I’ll be sad to leave.
"Never before and never since, I promise / will the whole world be warm as this"
I woke up sweaty from my afternoon nap and had trouble sleeping last night when the power went out. Yesterday the dry harmattan winds were in full force, sweeping the sand up into the air and intensifying the oven grade temperature. But even if I won’t miss the physical heat, I will feel the loss of the kindness of hearts, that warmth of welcome that constitutes the famous “teranga” of the Senegalese.
"And as you feel it / you’ll know it’s true / that you / are blessed and lucky"
I have had the opportunity to experience so much here, and have gotten encouragement along the way from so many sources. Getting to not only see this country, but integrate into this different culture and way of life, has been an adventure for which I will be forever grateful.
"It’s true / that you / are touched by something / that’ll grow and bloom"
I hope that what I have learned here will stick with me, that I will be able to move on from here to take the best and worst of this time to push me to continue to develop and evolve.
"You"
Who I am has been forever affected by this experience. It seems cliché, but it is nevertheless true. As I move on from here, I will take Ngoné Ndiaye with me, even as I return to a place where I am known by another name. It’s not that I feel I spent two years being someone else - but maybe that in being here, I discovered another part of me.
---
After writing this, I stumble up the sandy street under a half-full moon to the fruit stand at the edge of the road, buy bananas for tomorrow’s breakfast and take in the warm evening breeze. Back at my family’s house I take a bucket bath to cool off from the day, put on a light dress and listen to my sisters out in the courtyard playing with the neighbor’s baby, singing and sharing the day’s gossip. I take a chair out to join them, thinking that all too soon, my life will be different from this. So for then, I remember these days.
Friday, April 2, 2010
someone else's success - but we all share it
In English when someone says "Thank you," you say "You're welcome."
In French, "Merci" is often answered with "De rien," meaning "It's nothing."
In Wolof the response to "Jerejef" (thank you) is "Nio ko bokk", which literally means "we (all) share it."
I understood the real meaning of "nio ko bokk" last weekend when I was in Dakar visiting friends. On Sunday I had the pleasure of being invited to a "Journée d'Amitié" that was held by a youth group in my best Senegalese friend's neighborhood in the northern suburbs of the capital. It's a new community group, non-religiously-affiliated, with the goal of getting together young adults in the neighborhood so they can help each other out, talk about common problems, work together to create jobs and support each other. I think it's very cool that they're doing this, and my friend A. is one of their founding members.
Sunday they held this "Friendship Day" that was about advertising the group, getting people to meet people, and just having fun. They served lunch, talked about what the group is doing and what projects they hope to do, people introduced themselves, and then there was music and dancing. I had a blast, and was so proud of all of them for their initiative and self-motivation. Being the so-called "development agent" that is my role here, I couldn't help thinking that there in front of me I was seeing what I had been saying to other volunteers that Senegal needs - Senegalese who take it upon themselves to help each other, who don't just reach out to outside sources to beg for handouts, who look at their peers as resource people and seek solutions to their problems next door, instead of the next continent over.
In that afternoon I felt the glow of success, and a hopefulness that has often escaped me in my work at site. This was not something that I had worked for, nothing here was the result of my participation, and yet I felt pride that I could simply be there to witness this achievement. True, these people are just beginning, this group is just getting started. Who knows where they will go from here, if their success will continue. But the fact that they are trying, not waiting for anyone to help them but stepping up to help themselves, is, to me, huge. I cannot count the number of times I have talked with other volunteers about the questionable sustainability of our work here, the validity of "development work" and the merit or lack thereof of external agents intervening in countries like Senegal. As strangers from foreign lands dropping in to tell local people how to do something better that they've done a certain way for centuries, I often feel that our presence here hinders more than helps. But at best, I believe that we as volunteers can serve to show the Senegalese that there are different ways of thinking about things. Because who is to say what is better? What is better for an American may not be better for a Senegalese. I believe that what is eventually going to help better Senegal needs to come from within Senegal itself.
So I applaud these brave young adults, who aren't willing to join so many of their peers in resignation like all the young Senegalese I meet who complain to me about their own country, who cross their arms and say over and over, "Senegal neexul, fii amul xaalis." (Senegal is terrible, there's no money here.) Having come to this country with the aim of helping people here to help themselves, I have often been discouraged to see the overwhelming number of people who don't even want to try to help themselves. But here is a group who are walking the walk, stepping up to the plate and doing something. I couldn't think of a better way to start to say goodbye to this place than by seeing at least one small part of it that really doesn't need my help. Because their success is mine as well, and yours, wherever you are.
We all share it.
(The Amicale's president P.B. practicing his speech, with sister looking on)
(P.B. delivering speech, with other board members B. and F. looking on)
clip "mboolo mooy doole" (strength in numbers)
In French, "Merci" is often answered with "De rien," meaning "It's nothing."
In Wolof the response to "Jerejef" (thank you) is "Nio ko bokk", which literally means "we (all) share it."
I understood the real meaning of "nio ko bokk" last weekend when I was in Dakar visiting friends. On Sunday I had the pleasure of being invited to a "Journée d'Amitié" that was held by a youth group in my best Senegalese friend's neighborhood in the northern suburbs of the capital. It's a new community group, non-religiously-affiliated, with the goal of getting together young adults in the neighborhood so they can help each other out, talk about common problems, work together to create jobs and support each other. I think it's very cool that they're doing this, and my friend A. is one of their founding members.
Sunday they held this "Friendship Day" that was about advertising the group, getting people to meet people, and just having fun. They served lunch, talked about what the group is doing and what projects they hope to do, people introduced themselves, and then there was music and dancing. I had a blast, and was so proud of all of them for their initiative and self-motivation. Being the so-called "development agent" that is my role here, I couldn't help thinking that there in front of me I was seeing what I had been saying to other volunteers that Senegal needs - Senegalese who take it upon themselves to help each other, who don't just reach out to outside sources to beg for handouts, who look at their peers as resource people and seek solutions to their problems next door, instead of the next continent over.
In that afternoon I felt the glow of success, and a hopefulness that has often escaped me in my work at site. This was not something that I had worked for, nothing here was the result of my participation, and yet I felt pride that I could simply be there to witness this achievement. True, these people are just beginning, this group is just getting started. Who knows where they will go from here, if their success will continue. But the fact that they are trying, not waiting for anyone to help them but stepping up to help themselves, is, to me, huge. I cannot count the number of times I have talked with other volunteers about the questionable sustainability of our work here, the validity of "development work" and the merit or lack thereof of external agents intervening in countries like Senegal. As strangers from foreign lands dropping in to tell local people how to do something better that they've done a certain way for centuries, I often feel that our presence here hinders more than helps. But at best, I believe that we as volunteers can serve to show the Senegalese that there are different ways of thinking about things. Because who is to say what is better? What is better for an American may not be better for a Senegalese. I believe that what is eventually going to help better Senegal needs to come from within Senegal itself.
So I applaud these brave young adults, who aren't willing to join so many of their peers in resignation like all the young Senegalese I meet who complain to me about their own country, who cross their arms and say over and over, "Senegal neexul, fii amul xaalis." (Senegal is terrible, there's no money here.) Having come to this country with the aim of helping people here to help themselves, I have often been discouraged to see the overwhelming number of people who don't even want to try to help themselves. But here is a group who are walking the walk, stepping up to the plate and doing something. I couldn't think of a better way to start to say goodbye to this place than by seeing at least one small part of it that really doesn't need my help. Because their success is mine as well, and yours, wherever you are.
We all share it.
(The Amicale's president P.B. practicing his speech, with sister looking on)
(P.B. delivering speech, with other board members B. and F. looking on)clip "mboolo mooy doole" (strength in numbers)
what is reality
I am not going to apologize for my last entry, as much as it was harsh and written during a long moment of anger. I started this blog to share with people outside of this experience what it is that I am really living in this country. Over the last two years I have lived through many moments that I have chosen not to record here, trying to keep in mind a sense of equilibrium in what I convey. This being said, it seems to me that some readers would still only like to hear about my successes, the bright side of being a Peace Corps volunteer, the days I get to say, “Yes, this is why I came!”
But this experience is not all sunshine, rainbows and happy smiling children. Peace Corps service would not be something so many call “life-changing” if it were not for the low points, the times when nothing seems to go right, when everything you try looks like a failure and your own neighbors are laughing at your face before you even get out of your front door in the morning.
I did not write my last post in a ploy for pity, but simply in an effort to express a reality. My reality. This is, after all, my perception of my own experience.
But if we are talking about impartiality and giving equal weight to both extremes of a sliding scale, I urge you to remember that no two Peace Corps services are alike, even within the same country, even within the same work sector. I have a friend who lives only 45 kilometers away in a 300-person village without electricity. His experience has been vastly different than mine, yet we are both Environmental Education Peace Corps volunteers serving in Senegal. see Chris' blog Most volunteers in Senegal serve in small villages, but another one of my best friends lives in the capital of 3 million, see Jared’s blog and yet another in a city of 120,000. Each one of them has their own experience, their own story to tell, their own perception of what constitutes a success.
Now think about the number of countries in which Peace Corps volunteers are serving around the world, multiplied by the number of volunteers in those countries, and you will come up with the number of different experiences that still all qualify as “the Peace Corps experience”.
Mine is only one small page in the encyclopedia that’s still being written.
Every day I have failures. Some days I have successes too. And I admit that the closer I get to finishing my service the harder it becomes to focus on the successes, as much as I know how important it will be to me to leave here on a positive note.
When I do take a minute to think about where I have succeeded, I can see that most of my successes have been personal ones, not great work achievements. I can’t say for certain that because of my presence here over the last two years I’ve changed anyone’s life in this town. It’s only when I look at myself that I can see real evidence of change.
But this experience is not all sunshine, rainbows and happy smiling children. Peace Corps service would not be something so many call “life-changing” if it were not for the low points, the times when nothing seems to go right, when everything you try looks like a failure and your own neighbors are laughing at your face before you even get out of your front door in the morning.
I did not write my last post in a ploy for pity, but simply in an effort to express a reality. My reality. This is, after all, my perception of my own experience.
But if we are talking about impartiality and giving equal weight to both extremes of a sliding scale, I urge you to remember that no two Peace Corps services are alike, even within the same country, even within the same work sector. I have a friend who lives only 45 kilometers away in a 300-person village without electricity. His experience has been vastly different than mine, yet we are both Environmental Education Peace Corps volunteers serving in Senegal. see Chris' blog Most volunteers in Senegal serve in small villages, but another one of my best friends lives in the capital of 3 million, see Jared’s blog and yet another in a city of 120,000. Each one of them has their own experience, their own story to tell, their own perception of what constitutes a success.
Now think about the number of countries in which Peace Corps volunteers are serving around the world, multiplied by the number of volunteers in those countries, and you will come up with the number of different experiences that still all qualify as “the Peace Corps experience”.
Mine is only one small page in the encyclopedia that’s still being written.
Every day I have failures. Some days I have successes too. And I admit that the closer I get to finishing my service the harder it becomes to focus on the successes, as much as I know how important it will be to me to leave here on a positive note.
When I do take a minute to think about where I have succeeded, I can see that most of my successes have been personal ones, not great work achievements. I can’t say for certain that because of my presence here over the last two years I’ve changed anyone’s life in this town. It’s only when I look at myself that I can see real evidence of change.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
