These last couple weeks have been up and down. Every day is a learning experience which is good when you feel like you're making progress and really bad when you aren't. Over the last couple weeks and some change, I got to know my family, did some traveling, and hit my first really rough patch that I'm still working my way out of. When we last spoke, I was about to move in with the family I'll be living with for the next 2 years, so let me start there.
Life with the family has been pretty uneventful so far. Move-in was a very busy day during which I met several government officials as well as my host family, but nothing remarkable came of it besides the exchange of a few phone numbers. The interesting part, to my perspective, came when all of the dust settled and it was just me and my family trying to create a situation we might call "normal". I started by learning names and relationships. There's the mother and father Ms. Cisse and Mr. Diop (in Senegalese culture, women often choose to keep their maiden name), as well as a few kids (Pap, Amadou, and Buoy), a daughter-in-law (Biti), and some help around the house/adopted sister (Mami). Pretty much all of them speak French, but we've made an agreement to speak only Wolof with me to help me learn, a decision which has caused its fair share of problems. Sometimes they get frustrated when I don't understand, sometimes I don't want to talk and go in my room, but, all and all, there have been no major problems with the family or living situation so far. The house itself, actually, is extremely nice by anybody's standards. There's a TV, running water, multiple stories, and wi-fi (which is a blessing and a curse). I have my own bed and bathroom and electricity and internet in my room so I have everything I could ever ask for in terms of amenities. As I said, though, this type of connectivity is not without its drawbacks.
Consistent internet allows me to keep in touch with my family or look up important information or communicate with colleagues. However, it also gives me a keen awareness of everything that I left behind in America. College graduations happened over the past few weekends which brought to my Facebook feed pictures of not just The Lawn at U.Va., but also graduations at Virginia Tech, North Carolina, and other schools. I saw people I once knew with whom I could have developed a closer friendship had I not been changing schools every year. I saw groups of people or pairs of friends that I remembered as freshman or sophomores, now graduating seniors and I imagined the experiences they had between when I left them and that picture. I imagined what it would have been like to share my college experience with somebody; to spend 4 years in one town. To an extent, I envy that. I envy it because I never really built a home at college. My experience was quite unique and rewarding, but, as a result, I had to go through it alone. I had to give up my life at Virginia Tech to go to UNC. I had to give up my life at UNC to go to U.Va. I had to give up my life in Richmond to come here. It's one thing to choose to go to one school over another, but it's another to go somewhere, meet the people you could spend 4 years (or the rest of your life) with, start down that road and choose to go another direction. Every life is an infinite fractal. You have an infinite amount of paths to walk down, so you must turn down an infinite amount of opportunities. When you begin walking one direction and see friendships blossoming, opportunities arising, a life developing, it's that much harder to turn around. I've chosen to do that 3 times and the costs are starting to catch up to me. I don't exactly regret moving around so much, but I'm now keenly aware of the costs of it. Eventually, I got the degree I wanted, but at what cost? Certainly more than just tuition. It cost me friendships, too. Maybe I'll grow to regret that exchange with time, maybe I'll realize how wise I was in my young years, but right now I'm caught in the middle questioning my priorities and life decisions that led me here. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why the internet is not always a good thing.
Back to life in Dakar, so since move-in, I've had absolutely no contact with any of my bosses or other Peace Corps officials. It's been entirely up to me to get to know the town, continue studying the language, and generally find things to do with myself. I've generally just been traveling to different parts of the city to learn the bus system and see the sights. In the more touristy areas, it's rare for a white person to speak Wolof, so I become a spectacle that draws the attention of several locals who are either genuinely interested in my or feigning interest to get close to me. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to tell the difference between the two, so you have to treat everyone with respect. In other places, nobody approaches me or seems to care that I'm there, but I feel like I'm still treated differently. I obviously stand out in a crowd because of both my size and pigmentation, but during training, I didn't feel like I got treated very differently because of it. Now, I feel like people look at me differently; are trying to assign stereotypes to me and judge me. I also question the motives of the people who approach me now. I've had a few bad experiences with people trying to rip me off and work me over, so I always wonder when the person is going to ask me to come to his shop or flatly ask for money. I can count on my hands the number of people who, besides my family, I felt like were genuinely interested in me and not pretending to be so because they thought they could get something out of me. Again, maybe I'm cynical, but I think I have a reason to be cautious. I am aware of the stereotypes that I'm facing. All I can do, though, is continue to work to find the people who will treat me with respect and care about me as a person. I've met a few already and I know I'll meet more in a country that calls itself "Le Pays de la Teranga" (The Country of Hospitality). It just takes time to build those relationships.
I'll be meeting my work partners soon and after that I'll have a good idea of exactly what type of work I'll be doing. I'll be sure to post when that happens and I'll also try to get pictures of my room and living situation up for the next post as well. Thanks for reading!
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