Impact

Things continue to move along here in Senegal.  All in all, it's been a pretty normal month.  I've had no new insights about my work here or about the differences in my home culture and this new one.  Those types of epiphanies don't come very often anymore.  I do still miss home a lot, though.  My perspective on time has shifted a little bit, too.  Instead of thinking in terms of how long I've been here or how long until I leave, I've started thinking in terms of how much I have time to do before I leave.  It's a product of being nearly halfway through my service and also of now seeing clear ways in which I can make an impact and a clearer vision of my role here.  For this and other reasons, my second year in Senegal figures to be quite a bit different from my first. 

There are three new CED volunteers coming to Dakar that will allow me to pass off the work that I've been doing in the distant suburbs and focus more on the things that are closest to me, geographically and emotionally.  At the same time, however, I've been receiving pressure from higher ups to do more trainings on entrepreneurship and business creation.  If you remember, I made a post a couple months ago outlining all of the things I was working on at that particular time.  Because of all these new variables, all but two of those activities will be either closed out or passed along by the middle of May.  I'm working with a brand new slate and despite getting suggestions from my bosses, it's up to me to decide how to fill it.  I suppose I'll have to write a follow up to that piece here soon.

On the home front, my host sister recently had a baby girl named Kumba.  In Senegal, one week after the baby is born, you have a naming ceremony/baptism/big party called a Ngente where the baby gets a name, the mother is honored, and everybody parties.  I took a few photos of the Ngente that I'll share with you in this album.

Back to the work side of things, I have a busy couple of weeks coming up.  The new Dakar volunteers will come to the city to visit their new homes and to see a little bit of the town starting on April 2nd.  I'm responsible for all 3 of them and, unfortunately, I only have about 4 days to show them their sites and the key areas of Dakar.  We'll be running around meeting new people that whole weekend.  Afterwards, I'll return to Thies to help out a bit more with training there until the 8th.  Then, I'll go to St. Louis for the Talibe Soccer Tournament.  I'm planning on holding an ultimate frisbee clinic up there, so that should be very interesting.  I'll finally return to Dakar on the 11th just in time to start two new entrepreneurship classes on the 16th and 17th and to attend the Frisbee Tournament on the 18th.  Work and events like that always seem to get bunched up . You might find yourself running around at top speed for 2 weeks then be twiddling your thumbs for the next 2 weeks.  You just learn to accept whatever is thrown onto your plate on any given week and take whatever sort of happiness you can from it.  Such is Peace Corps.  Such is life.