Volver

This is my first post since March that was written in the United States.  Yes, I'm home in Richmond for 12 days to celebrate Christmas with my family and enjoy all of the riches that America has to offer.  There are a lot of feelings and things to discuss, so I'm just going to start writing and see where it takes me.

You know that feeling when you're thinking about what you want to eat and you just can't decide, but then, you come up with the perfect thing.  You think, "Yes! That's exactly what I want."  Then, you make it and eat it and you say to yourself, "That was it.  That really hit the spot."  Well, I feel that way towards every single food in the USA right now.  It's a constant feeling of "that's just what I was looking for".  The other day, I did the Costco free sample relay and I felt like Jim Carrey in Yes Man.  At first, I just wanted to say yes to everything to see what wonderful things would come my way.  At a certain point, however, I realized that I couldn't have said no even if I wanted to.  I didn't necessarily miss all of this food when I was in Senegal nor did I love it or eat it often when I was here last.  It's just like I'm trying everything for the first time again and the novelty of it all just seems to make everything more desirable.

One thing that I knew that I really missed was the cold.  I've always been a cold weather person.  Back in high school, I used to look at the weather every morning and I would only decide to wear long pants once it dropped below 40 degrees.  Walking out of the airport in Washington, I took my first deep breath of American air in over 9 months.  As I exhaled, I saw that cloud of condensation form in front of me and I couldn't help but smile.  Seeing my breath recalled so many memories for me.  It brings me back to so many places, so many times.  It's amazing how something so simple can be so interconnected between different areas of my memory, but it's one of the simple pleasures from America that I missed.  Just standing outside breathing the cold air and watching your breath appear and fade away.  I often just let my mind go blank when I do that.  I just focus on feeling the cold air in my lungs when I inhale.  I watch the cloud as it forms, expands, and rises because clouds, like snowflakes, are never exactly alike.  I see it as it dissipates back into the air from which I drew the original breath.  Then, the cycle happens all over again.  That's life, I suppose.

I'm also amazed by how quickly I fell back into old habits.  The last 9 months of my life almost feel like a dream.  I'm back exactly where I was just as if I had taken a long sleep instead of traveling to another continent and back.  I don't feel different, things don't look different.  I don't know if I expected things to be different, but it's just weird to have gone through so much in the past 9 months then almost go back in time to before I was ever in Senegal.  Come to think of it, I also don't have a phone or a car, have no friends in town, and eat all day.  Am I 13 again?  Did I go back too far?  Oh well.

Anyway, I'm only a couple days into my vacation, so I'll save a few thoughts and observations for my next post when my vacation will be over.  Happy Holidays to everybody, especially those of you celebrating in Senegal. 

Jeremiah Johnson

This post is going to be a very long, detailed work update. It's been a while since I talked in depth about work, so I'm going to give you a little description of each of my current activities so you can start to get an idea of what I'm doing over here on a daily basis. Hopefully, it won't be too long and you can get to the end because there's some fun stuff down there.

Guediawaye

The women in Guediawaye had such promise at the start. They were attentive and even added to the lessons with their own creativity. They had the focus and foresight to finish a business plan before I even taught them how to make their product. After the first production, they were disappointed that the soap didn't come out the way they wanted, but eager to try it again and tweak the recipe. The most recent time I made the trip, though, they couldn't tell me a single thing they had done at work over the past 2 weeks. I was supposed to look at a new batch of soap and critique their accounting practices. Instead, I traveled 2 and a half hours for them to tell me that they had done no work. Now, they're students and I know that, when I was a student, it was my first priority. They're in a period of exams, so I can see why they wouldn't want to work. The reason I'm still upset is that I brought up this very problem three weeks ago. They told me school work was going to pick back up and I asked them if they wanted to take a break. They assured me that they could handle both and I just reiterated that they would have to plan out their time in advance in order to manage both school and work. This type of detailed scheduling is a foreign concept to most senegalese and it looks like they took none of it to heart. Despite them not taking my advice, I can forgive them for that as I hope they will have learned their lesson. What is more difficult to forgive is what happened next. So, they told me that they had done no work, but I was there already and wanted to do something productive. I had also been giving them some private English lessons after we finish our stuff for the business. I had a passage prepared that day, so I figured I could at least teach some English before returning home. I passed out the sheets and proceeded to try to lead the small group (only 5 women today) to read the passage and discuss the meaning and vocabulary. They would barely look at the page and seemed completely disinterested. These are free, private English lessons from a native speaker in a suburb of Dakar. Many, many people would beg for such an opportunity, yet here they were, throwing it away. I wrapped up class early and said that I would not come back until after my vacation, which would mean we would take the entire month of December off. I came home and attempted to call my family and talk with them over their Thanksgiving meal to improve my mood, but the internet seemed intent on not letting me do that either. I passed up a Thanksgiving potluck at the US ambassador to Dakar's residence on Thanksgiving day for all of this. Terrible.

School Garden

The garden is at an early enough stage that it hasn't had a chance to really get messed up yet. The grant proposal is submitted and I've selected the spaces we're going to grow moringa and the school director has selected the vegetables she wants to grow in the table beds. We've determined that the produce will be sold in order to pay for next season's operating costs and that educational opportunities in terms of plant biology and container gardening will be offered. The school director has failed to repair the broken tables thus far and, thusly, hasn't held up her end of the deal, but I don't really care about that as long as she properly cares for the garden. That's all the mandatory community contribution is designed to do anyway; make sure the community adequately cares for the project. Fortunately, I have a long time left here, so I can monitor the garden personally and make sure that happens. In any case, I'll hopefully have seeds in the ground by the time I come home for Christmas and we'll see how things go from there.

ELI

I've been volunteering once or twice a week at a place called the English Language Institute (ELI). It was originally a branch of Suffolk University designed to act as a bridge to help African students transition to the new expectations and culture of American schools. When that experiment failed, the members of the English department formed their own group and now cater to students, professionals, and businesses alike, providing high quality English education for school or the workplace as well as TOEFL preparation. Whenever I go there, I work with the teacher and they either give me a block of time in their lesson plan or work me into their lesson plan to, not only give their students a chance to interact with a native speaker, but also to hear about American culture and views. It's not the typical Peace Corps target market as a lot of the customers are fairly wealthy, but I enjoy the work and it's a good group of people, so I'll continue to devote a few hours each week to ELI.

Baker

I've mentioned the artisanal baker here before, so I don't need to introduce the team in detail here. It's a man and his neice and I really enjoy their breads and think that they're really dedicated, hard-working, and organized(!!!). They're a pretty professionalized business already, so again, they aren't really in the prototypical Peace Corps target , but I like to think of them as being one level up from that on the supply chain as they buy from local grain producers that Peace Corps Volunteers would potentially work with. They're a business that uses almost exclusively local ingredients and I think helping a business like that is helping many Senegalese producers along the supply chain. Anyway, I recently got them into an exposition at the US Embassy that allowed them to showcase their breads to embassy workers. There's no clear plan on what I can do for them after that, but I'm always on the lookout and always available to help them if something comes up.

Grand Yoff Women

The “Grand Yoff Women” were the ones that the previous volunteer worked a lot with and, technically, my primary work partner here in Dakar. Due to some major communication breakdowns, however, I've barely seen them over my first 6 months here and have only recently gotten back in touch with them and cleared the air. If you remember, I expressed confusion about their work schedule which was one of the major reasons why I wasn't able to meet up with them as much as I would have liked. It turns out that they expected me to call once or twice a week to see if they were working instead of them calling me whenever they were working. They were upset for a moment, but I've seen them several times over the last 2 weeks and brought them up to speed on everything the previous volunteer left me and we're talking about solar drying now, so I think that I'll look at that period as a minor hiccup when I get to the end of my service.

Other

I have a couple more things that are just on the back burner waiting for somebody to get back to me. If either of these projects were my primary focus, I would have followed up ages ago, but I simply don't have the time to handle everything. In any case, there are two that I will follow up with eventually, but that I'm not actually doing any work on right now. The first is the chicken raiser/copy shop/money transfer lady that I've mentioned before. After getting stood up in the middle of nowhere, she claimed to be very sick and I told her to call me back when she was feeling better so we can reschedule. It's been a couple weeks now with no response, so I'm not sure how she's doing. There was a time when I wanted to try to place one of the next group of CED volunteers in that region so he/she could work, at least in part, with this lady, but it seems to be too late now.

The other project that is on hold that I'm going to follow up on is the entrepreneurship and accounting classes at the youth prison. I spent a decent amount of time on that proposal, so I'd at least like to know why things have slowed to a halt. Chances are it has nothing to do with me. Anyway, it's an interesting option, so I'll follow up on that as well probably after vacation.

In addition to those two projects on hold, I often get invitations to various events being held in the city such as a Korean cultural day coming up or the International Day of the Volunteer on the 5^th. Sometimes, I'm simply invited and sometimes I'm expected to attend to represent either Peace Corps or the CED program. These events don't happen every week (although I have 2 of them this week), but they are a part of my schedule that's fairly unique to being a Dakar volunteer.

Frisbee

I'm not afraid to admit that this activity is my pride and joy. It's not a 1^st goal, or a 2^nd goal, or even a 3^rd goal activity in terms of Peace Corps, but it's a personal 1^st goal activity because it makes me happy. Every Sunday, I go over to a nice grassy field on the western coast of the peninsula and play ultimate with a group of mostly Americans from either the Embassy or the American school. Beforehand, I always go out to lunch and get food that I don't get to eat at home. This could be American, Italian, or even Lebanese food whatever I'm feeling that day. I also sometimes go to some of the scenic areas of Dakar, some of which I've shown you in previous posts, and just sit there for a while. It's a Sunday tradition for me here and it really helps me get through the week knowing that another game of ultimate is waiting for me at the end of it.

Home Improvement

Breaking news on the home front. Several months ago, I gave you a tour of my home here and pointed out one particularly menacing set of spiraling metal stairs. In case you've forgotten, you can see the picture again here.. I said that my host father promised me that plans were in the works to remove them and replace them with something slightly less likely to maim me. Well, last weekend, it began. THE STAIRS ARE GONE!!!! O joyous day!!! There are major home repairs going on upstairs and for the first few days they didn't touch the stairs. I was worried that they were going to be overlooked, but behold!!!. That last bit was removed as well and they're currently putting a ceiling where the stairs were. I suppose this means I'll have to leave the apartment and use the general stairs, but still no more fearing for my life as I take that first long lunge over that unforgiving metal deathtrap. No more worrying that I'm going to trip and fall into the massive hole in the floor. I'm so relieved that my rent money has been put to good use. This truly is a joyous day.

Ok, so this post turned into a very long one, so I'll have to wait to show you the next set of photos in my “Eric's favorite spots in Dakar” album. Instead, I'll just post a little teaser. So, the next spot I'm going to show you is just around this corner. In my next post, I'll tell you where this is and give you more pictures to look at. Thanks for reading.