It's been (approximately) 500 days since I arrived in Senegal. It's not quite time to start worrying about post-Peace Corps life, but it's time to start weighing my options. It's not quite time to start thinking about how to wrap up my work and what impact I had, but it's time to start making an exit strategy and setting deadlines. The end isn't quite in sight, but I know that it's just over the next hill. I think I wrote in a post several months ago something along the lines of "I need to finish my service, but, when it's over, I'll be ready." I find that that still holds true for me. There are still things for me here, but when my time's up, I'm going to be ready to go home.
Lots of things have happened over the past couple months as my work has shifted from that of a consultant, advising business owners on certain problems and situations, to that of a trainer, teaching prospective entrepreneurs the skills they need to start and manage their own business. It's been an interesting, but welcome transition as I don't need to gather and organize groups of students for the classes anymore. That's all done by the local Youth Employment agency called ANPEJ. All I do is coordinate with them on details and teach. It's not ideal and there are some negative consequences, but it's overall a decent situation. Other than teaching, I'm still planning on resuming English activities and activities with the Artisanal Village once Ramadan is over and I also have some training/internal responsibilities as Work Zone Coordinator, so I'm still keeping some other work besides teaching. There's certainly not as much freedom as I once had, but a little bit of stability isn't a bad thing either.
In other news, I'm (partially) fasting for Ramadan this year. The typical rule is no food, no water, sunup to sundown. For my own
health and sanity, I adjusted that a bit. Basically, my rule is no caloric intake between 5:30 AM and 7:30 PM. That means water is OK. I'm finding that it gets easier if you stick with it and either stay busy or commit to sleeping all day. I'm typically not able to do the latter, so staying busy works on most days. It's not exactly fun, but I feel like it does change your body in some way. It had me looking up the benefits and theories behind intermittent fasting. I doubt I'll be trying it, but I at least have some perspective on it now.
Over the past 2 months, I've felt at times very much a part of the volunteer community, like I'm part of the family. At other times, though, I've felt like my service will always have an asterisk next to it.
* But he lives in Dakar.
During my VV in April 2014, the volunteer that I replaced warned me about this feeling. He said people might not respect my service. They might say things like "Posh Corps" or might assume that you're all play and no work. I find that people aren't that direct with those types of criticisms. Instead, I can feel that people just attach that little asterisk on everything I do and everything I say. It's rarely, if ever, a malicious thing. For some, it doesn't mean much at all. For others, it means I can't relate to their life or the lives of other volunteers. I suppose there's a certain amount of truth to it in that regard. In Senegal, volunteers live in work at sites at varying levels of urbanization but Dakar stands alone. Does that mean I should put an asterisk next to my Peace Corps service on my resume? I'm not sure if I need to go that far, but I think it does mean that I can never really relate to other volunteers on a certain level. There are simply some things that I don't get to experience. That's an unfortunate truth, but I still feel like I have a lot to offer the Peace Corps Senegal community. Even if an asterisk is put next to my name, I hope that I'll still be able to have my thoughts heard and not be judged based on where I was placed.
Other than that, lots of exciting things coming up. Ramadan will be over soon, then I help out with training the Health/CED stage that arrived 4 months ago. After that, I'm in Ziguinchor for an English camp that I'm very excited about. All the while, I'll be working on the artisanal goods catalog, starting work on my grad school applications, and doing whatever other odd tasks or opportunities come my way. We're coming down the home stretch now and I plan to make the most of the time I have left.