Dakar and Everything After
So I went to Dakar for a softball tournament. I’m not much on softball, so I really went to see Dakar and hang out with Peace Corps Volunteers from around West Africa. It was a great time, truly wonderful to be in a proper city again after seven months of Gambia, where even the Kombo region is an overblown farm town. Senegambia is one area of a lot of resorts, nightclubs, restaurants and all that, but it’s too touristy for Peace Corps blood, at least that which runs through my veins.
And then I spent a few days in and out of the Peace Corps medical office, trying to get them to figure out what’s wrong with my intestines. Or, hopefully, what WAS wrong with them, as today I finished a long, nasty course of medicine designed to kill more parasites than humans, though by a closer measure than I cared for.
I’m starting to learn that even in Kombo one can’t expect this place to run like the Western world, and everything takes four times longer. So, I will only try to do a couple of things when I go down, and not get sucked into life there, which can be easier in many ways but more irritating in many others – most “up-country” volunteers generally feel that Kombo sucks, even though we all go down sometimes to deal with the business of life and interfacing with the outside world.
And, with that knowledge hopefully comes the ability to get my solar project off the ground, now two full months later than I wanted. I’m planning to go down next week Wednesday, with a short list of tasks (though it grows longer every minute) and leave again on Friday. Quick trip, get my things done, submit paperwork for upcoming trip to Ghana to see the solar eclipse there! I’m leaving at the end of the month, truly quite excited about it, and perhaps I’ve even figured out how to pay for it. Life is different without access to an ATM.
In the past month, work has been in a new phase, as I try to require more out of my various counterparts than words, but it’s slowly been coming around, and they are adjusting to me as I’ve been adjusting to them. I feel very good about the ways that I’ve found to work with people – not too central, not allowing myself to do too much, and trying to get them to talk and think things through with me so that I can try to see their point of view. It’s challenging, with the cultural differences, different approaches to communication and intensity of work, but I have some very good days when I “get it” and they seem to as well.
It’s starting to get hot here.
I remember my trip to Mali to visit Charles, and how hot it was there around this time of year, and I don’t think it’s that bad yet, but we’ve had a couple of days where sweating was a constant activity for me from noon to eight, except while I was bathing. The great news is that it’s still dry heat. The un-great news is that some days the wind feels like a hairdryer. Today we had Harmattan winds, so the air was full of dust and sand particles. I used to dislike the Harmattan, but today it had the effect of preventing the sun from getting ungodly hot. Which I’m in favor of.
This weekend a trainee is coming to visit me here in Fara Fenni. The new health trainees are about halfway finished with training, have most of the tough things under their belt, and it will be a lot of fun to show him (I’m assuming) around the “big town” with our bars, internet café, market and all that. After living in Kiang, I remember what a mind blower it was to move here, and I suspect it will be a great relief. I’m even trying to organize a party for Saturday night. I’m still my mother’s son.
I realize I’ve written almost nothing about Dakar, except that it’s not here. There is a Club Med there. There are restaurants with French food. There are nightclubs where the DJ’s can mix one song with the next, instead of the ipod-on-shuffle effect that we get at the “clubs” here. There are endless hordes of hustlers trying to sell you anything. There are more than three kinds of beer. (Here we have JulBrew, the Gambian beer, Gazelle, a Senegalese beer, and Ghanaian Guinness, not to be confused with the nectar of the gods brewed in Ireland). And, it showed me that this country is really truly poor. Senegal may be a third world country, but here is ten degrees poorer. And ten degrees hotter. Crossing the border back into The Gambia, one immediately notices that the fences and walls are more run down, there is more trash, and you are harassed differently. And you start sweating again. Even with all that, I was glad to come back. This is home now, for the next 14 months, and I like what I’m doing here.
Maybe that’s a good spot to end for now. Things are great, I’m hoping my health is finally on a long climb back to where it was when I arrived, and I’m looking forward to a whole host of things. Just a bit trembling in fear of the heat.
Love to you all, more when I can, Zac
And then I spent a few days in and out of the Peace Corps medical office, trying to get them to figure out what’s wrong with my intestines. Or, hopefully, what WAS wrong with them, as today I finished a long, nasty course of medicine designed to kill more parasites than humans, though by a closer measure than I cared for.
I’m starting to learn that even in Kombo one can’t expect this place to run like the Western world, and everything takes four times longer. So, I will only try to do a couple of things when I go down, and not get sucked into life there, which can be easier in many ways but more irritating in many others – most “up-country” volunteers generally feel that Kombo sucks, even though we all go down sometimes to deal with the business of life and interfacing with the outside world.
And, with that knowledge hopefully comes the ability to get my solar project off the ground, now two full months later than I wanted. I’m planning to go down next week Wednesday, with a short list of tasks (though it grows longer every minute) and leave again on Friday. Quick trip, get my things done, submit paperwork for upcoming trip to Ghana to see the solar eclipse there! I’m leaving at the end of the month, truly quite excited about it, and perhaps I’ve even figured out how to pay for it. Life is different without access to an ATM.
In the past month, work has been in a new phase, as I try to require more out of my various counterparts than words, but it’s slowly been coming around, and they are adjusting to me as I’ve been adjusting to them. I feel very good about the ways that I’ve found to work with people – not too central, not allowing myself to do too much, and trying to get them to talk and think things through with me so that I can try to see their point of view. It’s challenging, with the cultural differences, different approaches to communication and intensity of work, but I have some very good days when I “get it” and they seem to as well.
It’s starting to get hot here.
I remember my trip to Mali to visit Charles, and how hot it was there around this time of year, and I don’t think it’s that bad yet, but we’ve had a couple of days where sweating was a constant activity for me from noon to eight, except while I was bathing. The great news is that it’s still dry heat. The un-great news is that some days the wind feels like a hairdryer. Today we had Harmattan winds, so the air was full of dust and sand particles. I used to dislike the Harmattan, but today it had the effect of preventing the sun from getting ungodly hot. Which I’m in favor of.
This weekend a trainee is coming to visit me here in Fara Fenni. The new health trainees are about halfway finished with training, have most of the tough things under their belt, and it will be a lot of fun to show him (I’m assuming) around the “big town” with our bars, internet café, market and all that. After living in Kiang, I remember what a mind blower it was to move here, and I suspect it will be a great relief. I’m even trying to organize a party for Saturday night. I’m still my mother’s son.
I realize I’ve written almost nothing about Dakar, except that it’s not here. There is a Club Med there. There are restaurants with French food. There are nightclubs where the DJ’s can mix one song with the next, instead of the ipod-on-shuffle effect that we get at the “clubs” here. There are endless hordes of hustlers trying to sell you anything. There are more than three kinds of beer. (Here we have JulBrew, the Gambian beer, Gazelle, a Senegalese beer, and Ghanaian Guinness, not to be confused with the nectar of the gods brewed in Ireland). And, it showed me that this country is really truly poor. Senegal may be a third world country, but here is ten degrees poorer. And ten degrees hotter. Crossing the border back into The Gambia, one immediately notices that the fences and walls are more run down, there is more trash, and you are harassed differently. And you start sweating again. Even with all that, I was glad to come back. This is home now, for the next 14 months, and I like what I’m doing here.
Maybe that’s a good spot to end for now. Things are great, I’m hoping my health is finally on a long climb back to where it was when I arrived, and I’m looking forward to a whole host of things. Just a bit trembling in fear of the heat.
Love to you all, more when I can, Zac
posted by Zac at
3:23 PM
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