In the Loop

When I wrote my last post, as some of you know, I was going through a bit of a low point.  My service, by the grace of God, had been without major hardship up to that point as I had only had the one minor sickness that was gone within 24 hours and no major mental/emotional struggles to speak of.  I suppose it was just a matter of time before all of the stress and pressure caught up with me.  Fortunately, I have a strong support structure both back home in America and here in Senegal who was able to help me through the first of what will likely be several low points over these next 2 years.  I just hope that the next one is as mild and short-lived as this last one was.

Anyway, I mentioned that I would describe my living situation and work in a little more detail in this post and I see no reasonable excuse I could use to break that promise, so I suppose those will be the contents of this post.

I'm going to start with a photo that will likely make a lot of people question whether I'm really in the Peace Corps or not.  That photo is of my living room, which is on the floor above my bedroom.  I basically live in an apartment complex in the owners' apartment which spans 2 floors.  Upstairs is my host parents' bedroom as well as a small kitchen and two living rooms.  The one you see is the nicer one, the one we receive guests in, but it's still a testament to how good my living conditions are here.  While the kitchen isn't much to look at, it still has a working sink, gas stove, and refrigerator, which is rare among volunteers.  My room, along with 3 other rooms (2 for the kids and 1 guest room), are downstairs.  Here, you can see a view from the bottom of the stairs, essentially taken from my doorway.  And now, the view from the top of the stairs.  There are a couple things to notice here.  There is no railing on the inside part of the spiral and the steps are essentially just a 2 inch bar of metal.  There's not a lot of room for error here in terms of foot placement.  In addition, if you look closely, you can see that the top step is missing which forces shorter people to do a small leap to either get to the first step or to the safety of the floor and taller people to do an awkward long step.  Luckily, being of the latter group, I haven't had any problems with these stairs so far.  That doesn't mean that a part of me isn't slightly terrified every time I go up and down those steps.  It truly is a great way to wake up in the morning.  Oh, I suppose I'll add the bathroom here.  Not a lot of people talk to me about it, but I have a feeling that some of you are quietly interested in my bathroom situation.  So, as you can see, I have a western toilet with working running water.  I also have a sink off to the left that isn't pictured.  Over on the right is the shower area and a squeegee I use to clean up.  Overall, it's a pretty nice setup.  The only thing that I wish I had is a better view from my window.  After seeing the beautiful views that other volunteers have, that's one thing that I'm definitely jealous of. 

So, work went from 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds.  One day, I was sitting in my room wondering when I'd actually start doing things.  The next day, I'm shaking hands with a member of the President Sall's cabinet at a conference with hundreds of small business owners where I represented the entire Community Economic Development program.  I must have been at that convention center for 20 hours over the 2 days I was at the conference and I must have talked to 100 entrepreneurs, students, and aspiring entrepreneurs about what Peace Corps does, what the CED program does, and how they can get in contact with a volunteer near them.  Luckily, this conference was almost exclusively in French, so I was able to express myself fairly well and only used Wolof when people wanted to see how well I spoke it.  Fortunately for me, they had very low standards, so I believe I made mostly good impressions on behalf of the program.  On top of that, I finally met with the women's group who, in all likelihood, will be my main work partner for the duration of my service.  I'm not doing any work with them just yet, but I'm observing, getting to know the members, and just being present.  That way, when the time comes, they'll be more than willing to voice their opinions, answer my questions, and help me with anything I need.  Once I get going, I believe my first steps with the juice making group will be helping them get some bottling equipment and get their merchandise stocked in supermarkets which will greatly expand their market reach.  They have the capacity to produce quite a bit of various kinds of juices, but simply aren't reaching enough individuals to sell anywhere near their capacity.  For that reason, they only work a couple days a week.  With the soap-making part of the group, I'll need to basically start from square 1 with them and look at costs.  The key question is, exactly how much does it cost to make one unit of soap?  Once I have that information, the answers to several other important questions, like pricing and profits, become clear.  This type of work is still probably a month away, however, as I want to do some relationship building and explore other work options before that.  In addition, I have meetings scheduled with a tailor who the previous Dakar volunteer helped create a website and online database for and a baker who claims to make nutritious breads from local ingredients.  I'm sure many more meeting requests are on the way as a result of the conference for small business owners.

 That's all I have for now.  Thank you for your continued support.  I'm not sure what these next few weeks will bring, so it's tough to provide a preview of my next post.  Whatever happens, though, I'll continue to keep you updated on life and work here in Dakar.  Thanks for reading!