A lot has gone on since we last spoke. Instead of breaking down my work in detail and telling you step-by-step what has happened, I'm going to boil it down into two stories. I believe these two stories say a lot about not only the past two months of my life, but also what I think will define my two years of service when I'm looking back on them years from now. The first one takes place over Thanksgiving and the other a few days before Christmas. The road is long and might get a little bumpy, but this is one post that I really hope you read in its entirety because I might not get any closer to summing up my service in one post than I do right here.
Last year, I chose not to participate in this event. I figured that I already lived in Dakar, why would I need an American homestay family? On top of that, one of the groups I was working with at the time had requested a meeting the evening of Thanksgiving. I ended up doing the meeting and skipping Thanksgiving 2014. You can go back to my first post of December 2014 to refresh your memory on how that turned out. Determined not to make the same mistake again, I figured I would at least sign up this year.
Sometimes, there is a shortage of homestays available compared to the amount of volunteers who want to come to Dakar to celebrate. Considering that nearly 100 volunteers were expected to be in Dakar for the event, it's not surprising. I signed up expecting to be politely asked to drop the homestay idea and find other lodging (i.e. stay with my Senegalese family) for the duration of the holiday. That's fine. After all, most volunteers live much tougher day-to-day lives at site than me. When an opportunity like this comes along, it's only fair that they should get the spots before me. I was prepared to take the rejection with grace.
A couple weeks before Thanksgiving, people started receiving their e-mails introducing them to their American homestay family or visiting PCV. One by one, the people that I asked informed me that they had been successfully placed. I, however, continued to wait. One week before, on November 18th, there was an e-mail from the CLO. The e-mail read "This email serves as the introduction between our wonderful Peace Corps volunteers and our generous homestay hosts." Great! I did get placed. That's good news. It continued, "Due to the fact that the host in this case is Ambassador Zumwalt, please note that the communication will be between you and the house manager." Wait. What was that? "The host in this case is Ambassador Zumwalt" I'm staying with the U.S. Ambassador to Senegal? I, admittedly, initially felt a bit of apprehension. It just seemed like more responsibility than I wanted at the time. I just wanted to have a relaxing few days away from stresses like work and public transportation not worry about making a good impression for all of Peace Corps Senegal. The forces of the universe also seemed to conspire a little bit to offer me a way out as there was a work conference in a fancy beach town called Saly that I could have gone to. At the end of the day, the opportunity to stay at an Ambassador's residence was simply too good of a chance to pass up. I made plans to go over on Wednesday and leave Saturday and spend some quality time with friends in between.
I arrived on Wednesday with 4 bags in hand. Two were my personal bags. One was full of potatoes and other ingredients that I would use for the dish I was bringing to the potluck on Thanksgiving day. The final was full of fruit that was a gift for the host as is custom in Senegal. I stepped into what is, by American standards, a very nice house. By Senegalese standards, though, it is a mansion. It includes a back yard and front yard both with grass, an outdoor pool, a piano, a massive kitchen with 3 ovens, satellite TV, and 3 floors of bedrooms, living areas, and bathrooms fit for any foreign dignitary that might be passing through. After being greeted by the house manager and the ambassador himself, I was told that we would be going out to dinner in a few hours with a couple other people from the Embassy and that I should take a few moments to unpack and settle in beforehand. I was led up to the roof and shown an apartment that would be mine for the next 3 days complete with a washer and dryer, 2 beds, a kitchen, and a heated shower. Even though I live relatively privileged lifestyle compared to other volunteers, each of those was a rare treat to me.
Fast-forward to dinner, we end up going downtown to a place I hadn't even heard of called La Parilla. It's an Argentinian Steakhouse. I get steak, medium-rare. It's cooked perfectly. The owner comes out to greet our table. I feel like I'm living a head-of-state life. Thanksgiving the next day is more great food and more quality time with other volunteers. I feel like this is unfair. Maybe I'll feel less guilty if I invite some folks over, I thought. I spoke to the house manager and inviting a few friends over the next day to use the pool seemed doable. It ended up being cloudy and cold, but we had our own private pool party at the Ambassador's residence stocked with bottles upon bottles of leftover juice from the party. On Saturday, it was time to leave already. I exchanged one more gift with the Ambassador. I gave him a pencil case made of horn that one of my friends at the artisanal village gave to me. He gave me some pastries and an invitation to return someday.
Just chalk this up to another experience that I never thought I would have when I signed up for this. My service, even now that I'm near its end, continues to surprise me. In this case it was a very pleasant surprise. In other cases, not so much. My next story takes place several weeks after this one upon returning home from a vacation in Spain and Italy.
From December 6th until very early in the morning on the 20th, I was on vacation with my mother. We first stopped for a few days in Barcelona, then hopped on a cruise ship that would take us to Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Rome, and Florence or rather the nearest port to each of those places. Cruising does have a few drawbacks that makes it not my ideal form of travelling, but it certainly has its perks as well. We saw a lot, ate well, and had access to great facilities and activities on the boat. It's a trip that I know neither of us regret taking.
Alas, at around 1AM on December 20th, my plane touched down in Dakar. The vacation was over. I breezed through the passport check with ease. There aren't really customs to speak of in Senegal, so getting off my plane and getting through security was easier than in the States. I arrived in the baggage claim area to find that the previous flight was still waiting on their bags. There were only two belts in the relatively tiny and cramped airport of Dakar and one of them was already full of bags going around that nobody seemed to want. By the time my flight had trickled into the room and our bags started to come out about 10 minutes later, the area was positively cramped.
For what seemed like hours, people kept filing in and bags kept emerging, but nobody would take them. With every bag that fell on the conveyor belt, it became more and more full until each bag that slid on would simply knock another one off. Time keeps going by and nobody is taking any bags. I look at the clock. 2 AM. I start to wonder if there was some major problem. Did they load the Dakar bags on the Banjul flight and vice versa? Why were so few people successfully retrieving their bags even after an hour? We continue to wait in this cramped room with 2 conveyor belts and no seats. I look at the clock again. 2:20. Something's wrong. I look up again. There's some commotion. The right bags are finally starting to come in. Some people I recognize from my flight are receiving theirs. A few minutes later, I see one making its way around. Then, the other. It's past 2:30 am and I'm exhausted, but I have all of my bags. I leave the airport and slump into the first taxi I can find. He quotes me a price over three times what it should be. Oh, right, I thought, the airport sucks. I quickly wise up, gather my bags, and leave the airport parking lot in hopes of finding a more reasonable deal. Fortunately, the first guy I find doesn't argue much and motions for me to hop in. I throw my bags in the back and we're on our way.
Almost immediately, I smell something all too familiar. I look at the driver and see the blank expression on his face and I know immediately. He is very, very drunk. Due to it being past 3am and him not saying much during our negotiation, I hadn't noticed it until we were on our way. By the time I did notice it, he was speeding down the open road and I no longer had a chance of getting out. Welp, I figured, I'm in this for the long haul. I point out cars and barriers that he's about to hit hoping that he's paying attention to me. I do my best to get him to slow down without angering him as his behavior becomes more and more erratic. As soon as I can, I ask him to turn down a side street. If he's taking me home, I figure, we'll do it this way so he can't get going too fast. The strategy, miraculously, works. We make it home without injuring ourselves or anyone else. I throw the money at him and practically sprint inside. I open the door, put my bags down, and collapse on the bed as my adrenaline high wears off. I muster the energy to get changed into some more comfortable clothes and plug in my computer so it would be ready tomorrow morning. I find both of my checked bags, but as I'm checking the corners of my room I realize, my backpack is not there. I left it in the drunk man's taxi.
In my haste, I figured I must have forgotten my backpack in the car. I literally sprint out to an open square where taxis hang out near my house hoping to find him there. I see a car that seems to acknowledge me, honk, and drive away. It's past 3:30am at this point, I'm on my second adrenaline rush of the past hour, and I have no idea what to make of this situation. Is he messing with me? Does he know that I have my bag and is egging me on to chase after him? I tell the other folks hanging around the area what happened and they say, 'you have to hire another taxi and chase after him!'. Am I about to get into a car chase at nearly 4am with a drunk guy who could pass out at any moment? At that moment, we see the car slow down and turn around. Thank goodness. Maybe he's wising up. He comes back and pulls up in front of me. I open up the door. The bag isn't there. The driver isn't there. It's not the right car. I've lost him. I slink back to my room fully aware of what this means. The people helping me told me to file a police report and make some announcements. They were sure it would come back. I think we both know, though, that bag is gone.
Just to give some context of what is in this bag and why it's so important, I'll highlight a few of the most important items in the bag. First, my wallet. There was no money in there. I keep the money separate. There was, however, my driver's license, social security card, and a couple credit cards. There were various souvenirs and documents from the trip with sentimental value. The big one, though, was my computer. It wasn't just my computer, but also my backup hard drive. Both were in the backpack, both gone. Those two hard drives held not only a lot of personal information,, but also all of the work that I was doing for Peace Corps at the time. The artisanal village catalog was backed up nowhere else. In losing that bag, I basically go back to square one in a lot of my work for Peace Corps which, with only 4 months left, simply did not seem to make sense. Coming back to my room at that point was probably the lowest point in my service. I wanted nothing more to do with this country. I was prepared to leave as soon as possible. Before going to bed, I figure, however, that I need to cover all of my bases before making such a decision. There was the first taxi that I got into that I could check. Perhaps it had gotten turned back in to the airport somehow. There was also a police report to file to attempt to find it. I go to sleep around 4 am with all of these thoughts and the threat of my service being abruptly ended in my head.
I wake up peacefully for a moment. I look at the clock. 6:45. The wave of terror slowly comes back over me. I couldn't sleep any more than that. I do the only thing I could do. Go to the airport and do my due diligence before filing this report. I arrive at the airport around 8:30 and ask around until I find the place to claim lost baggage. I get there and see nothing resembling my bag. I am asked where exactly I left it. Well, I thought, I had it when I picked up my two checked bags because I remember how heavy it was feeling after waiting for an hour and a half. The only other time I could have left it is the final scanner before you leave. In this airport, you must put all of your bags, checked and carry-on, through one final scanner before leaving the airport. Perhaps, in my dazed state, I simply didn't pick up the backpack. I am led to the room where they keep the bags claimed by customs or left at the customs station. No dice. The bag isn't here. I thank the men for their help and, downtrodden, turn to leave the airport when the man stops me and points another bag out that is sitting behind a desk. For some reason, they had pulled it aside and kept it in a separate place. I open the front pocket and take out what's inside. My ID. This is it. I could have collapsed right there in the airport the sense of relief was so great. That is how, in the case of about 8 hours from 1am to 9am on Sunday, December 20th, I went to the brink and back.
This second story reminds me of many other low points in my service. At times, this country has beat me down until I couldn't handle it anymore, then failed to deliver the deciding blow. When you are a volunteer here, you get broken down and built up so much. Senegal has the power to do this rapidly, even within the same week, within the same day, or within the same breath. I can't help but think that it's the same for other Peace Corps posts. However, Peace Corps Senegal also offers so many opportunities. Just about anything is possible. There is one thing that isn't possible, though. That is leaving this country as the same person that came here. If you stay here for an extended period and especially if you do your full term in Peace Corps, you will get broken down. You will get rebuilt. You will change. For every story that terrifies you, though, like mine with the hours in baggage claim and the drunk driver and almost losing my bag, there's another one like mine with the Ambassador. Unforgettable, irreplaceable, and only possible in a place like this. While the good times don't always help you get through the bad ones, the bad ones always help you appreciate the good ones and appreciate how many good ones there were back home.
These two stories are so representative of my service because they represent nearly the full range of emotions one experiences here. There are the highs like wonderful vacations, great food, and meeting your ambassador. There are also the lows of horrible overcrowding (this, I admit, is a Dakar specific criticism), isolation, and lost bags. There are frustrations when you think the hard part is over (getting away from the drunk driver) and quickly realize it has just begun (realizing the bag was gone). Above it all, though, there's the sense of relief, of overwhelming relief and accomplishment, when, somehow, against all odds, everything turns out OK. Maybe not everyone will agree with me on this assessment, but, to me, this is the closest I can come to summing up my experience in two stories.