Tambacounda Half Marathon

In early December 2013 I found myself in a very nice Peace Corps car heading up to Tambacounda.  Why was I in this air-conditioned car, what was my purpose in Tambacounda, besides of course, seeing the amazing Tamba volunteers?  Because I was going to run in the Tambacounda half marathon.  Why did I run?  That is something I asked myself occasionally and was asked frequently.  I remember having many conversations with Katie Curtis about why the heck I was planning on running it.

“So you’re coming to Tamba to run in the race right?”

“Yup”

“And you’re still intending to run the half marathon?”

“Yup”

“You do realize that there is also a 5k and a 10k run.  You don’t even jog, I don’t want you to get heat exhaustion and die.  Just run the 10k.”

“Nah, Ima run the half”

“But why?”

And “why” is really the question.  I mean, why do we do what we do?  What drives people to climb Mount Everest or swim the English Channel?  Because it is there!  I wanted to set my mind to something, strive and dedicate myself to that purpose, and succeed.  I don’t know, I guess I was at the point in my service where I wanted to prove to myself that I could set a goal, no matter how unlikely it was, do my best to prepare myself, and then go out and achieve it.  Maybe if I succeeded in the half marathon I could translate that success to other areas I find myself deficient.

So I had a little over a month to train for this race.  I decided I would jog every day at an increasing distance until the week of the race.  So that's how I found myself in shorts, in my running shoes, walking through my village to the road that leads to Guingara.  Many heads were turned,

“Hey Hamady, what are you doing?”
 “I’m going to run.”
 “But why?”
 “Fii esport!!”

And I was off, jogging for the first time in God knows how long.  It was about 5 minutes into my jog when I realized, “I’ve made a terrible mistake”.

But I gritted my teeth and got through it for about a 45 minute jog.  I went to bed that night exhausted, but satisfied.  Jogging was actually a great activity.  Because I was jogging on the road to Guingara I met many people from that village that I didn’t know, and I was able to alternate routes to different villages and in that way met people from Thiobo, Santanko, Baratinguira, and Takouru as well.  The days I didn’t jog I was asked, “Hey Hamady, I didn’t see you jog today!”

 “Today was my day off!”.

I can’t say that I ran every day, but I tried my best.  For a week in November that I wanted to train I went out to Saraya to help with the end-season sweeps for PECADOM PLUS.  I wasn’t able to jog then, but I tried to ask to go to the more distant villages so I could get some exercise riding my bike.

So there I was, in the Peace Corps car heading to Tambacounda.  I had done the best I could to prepare myself for the half marathon, but I was definitely not yet ready.  I had never really jogged for more than an hour at a time before becoming exhausted and stopping.  I realized in the car “I can’t finish the half marathon, I just haven’t trained enough, but I can run the most I can before walking, maybe I can alternate between jogging and walking.” It would be a bit humiliating, but I would at least be able to strive for my goal.  The other option was to run the 10k.  This had been suggested to me many times, and I had been considering it if I didn't feel prepared for the half marathon.  I did not feel prepared for the half marathon.  I had no idea what I was going to do.

I arrived in Tambacounda where I met up with a lot of friends from my stage and from other stages who were there to run as well.  I was asked often,

“So I heard rumors you’re planning on running the half, I didn’t know you ran.”
“I don’t really.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I still don’t know”.

That whole evening I was sitting there while hanging out with other volunteers, with that question in the back of my mind, what should I run?!  At around 9pm Miles came over and said that I really needed to register for one of the distances, and asked what was I going to run.  What was I going to run?  I still didn’t know, so I said, “Sign me up for whatever you think best.”  He walked off and came back a few minutes later,

 “Yeah, I signed you up for the half marathon.”

 Well, it looks like I’m running the half!

 How hard could it be?

The next morning I woke up at the unreasonable, ungodly hour of 6:30 because the race was to start at 7:00.  Or maybe it was earlier, I don’t remember.  I realized that I hadn't brought any socks.  By this point I was basically wearing flip flops everywhere I went, so though I remembered to bring shoes, I forgot socks!  I told this to Miles who was very concerned.  He suggested I could use his, but unfortunately they were his only pair.  So, through his generosity, I was fully geared for the race (and God bless him, Miles ran the 10k in shoes without socks).  Anyway, we were bused over to the starting line; there were about 13 of us.

In the hear of the city

The city was pretty empty so early in the morning and we were really the only ones out on the streets.  As we stretched and waited for the race to begin all of the other participants were talking about all the different half marathons they had run and what their favorite tracks were and things like that.  It was really nerve-racking, like, “yeah… I’ve never run a race before, let alone a half marathon, and these guys are like professionals.”

And then like that we were off, running through the streets of Tambacounda.  The race was about 11km along the road to Kedougou, and then 11k back.

It looks so far!

 I found a running partner in Adam and we just kind of hung out and talked while jogging.  The pack separated pretty quickly and we were basically at the very back of it.  We spent a lot of time talking about the various ways we would cripple those ahead of us when they were on the return leg of the race and we would pass each other.  Also, yelling at the people ahead of us for making us look bad and that there were girls watching. 

Seriously, I gotta look good

I managed to get to the turn-around while still feeling good, but then started to fade.  It was at this point that Adam decided to pick up the pace, to my chagrin.  He soon jogged past me and out of sight, but I came upon him 2k later.  He had injured himself was was being looked at by the medical staff who were there to make sure everyone stayed healthy during the run.  There may be a lesson to be learned from this.  At around the 15k mark I was kind of in agony, but there was only 7k more to go.  Those last 5k must have been the hardest in my life.  All of my muscles were screaming, and all of my tendons and ligaments were painfully tight.  At this point my jogging was less of running than like old man running.  You know how sometimes when you go out to the track early in the morning you will see old men jogging around?  They sort of have this weird shuffle thing.  I was old man shuffling.  I’m sure people were walking faster than I was jogging.

As I got back into the city of Tambacounda, which was now bustling as it was around 9 in the morning, I got a lot of quizzical looks from passer-bys and a lot of laughs.  I just zoned them out.  At one point the gendarmerie van passed by.  They drove real slow and shouted encouragement to me, “You can do it! You’re almost done, just a little bit more!”  It was actually really encouraging and nice of them to do, so, thank you Tambacounda gendarmerie!

I didn't bring anything to listen to while running, which I regretted, as music would definitely have been a good distraction.  There was, however, a sort of serenity in the quiet.  Thoughts would come and go, or would loop through my mind.  I passed the Tambacounda cemetery, which is cimetiere in French.  I knew that ciment was "cement" in French.  I wondered whether the word for cemetery in English came from the word for cement.  It would make sense in a way.  I don't know why, but this thought stuck in my mind for the last few kilometers of the run, and has stuck with me ever since.  I just had the chance to look it up, and it doesn't come from the word cement.  It comes from the Greek word for sleep.  Oh well!  With these thoughts running through my mind, I continued through the heart of Tambacounda.  It was probably best that no other volunteers saw, my running by that point was pretty pathetic. 

But I finished the race!  And I did it without ever stopping to walk.  It took me like 2 hours and 30 minutes or something, which isn’t actually very good, but I had achieved my goal of not walking.  I reached the finish line, high-fived people, milled around, and then took a seat and drank some ORS.  About 15 minutes later I thought I’d get up and get a bean sandwich… I could not get out of my chair.  Oh well, I guess I could rest a little bit more!

My smile betrays my exhaustion (Thumbs up Courtney!)

People began filtering out of the finishing line area, but there I remained, unable to leave that chair.  As my friends were leaving they asked if I was ready... I clearly wasn't.  They agreed to wait with me longer, and maybe 15 minutes after that I was ready to return to the Tambacounda regional house.  A large party was planned for that evening, but few were in the mood for it after being so exhausted.  As I sat in the regional house, Ouissam, the Peace Corps Medical Officer who was there to make sure that no one got injured, came over the check on me.  He suggested I take some paracetemol, the unequivocal go-to medicine in Senegal.  He said that he noticed that I hadn't gotten the flu shot for the season.

"Do you want the flu shot now?"
"...Sure"

So exhausted, I received the flu shot, and I barely felt it.

In conclusion, I am proud that I was able to set a goal and see it through.  I apparently am a bit of a Tamba half marathon legend.  When at WAIST I met someone from the new stage and they were like, “yeah, I saw you at the half marathon, you’re kind of a legend.” “Oh really?” “Yeah, you were the guy who showed up without like training at all and needed to borrow someone’s shoes and then you ran the whole thing.” “Well, I had trained a bit and it was socks I had to borrow, not shoes, but it’s good to know I have a reputation.”

And I haven’t run since.

There Be Rice In Them There Fields

I have always found rice interesting.  I don’t know why, but it really fascinates me.  Maybe it’s that it feeds more people than any other grain, providing around 1/5  of all calories consumed world wide [citation needed].  Perhaps it’s that I find the hillside terraces of rice patties extending throughout China to be beautiful.

Seriously, Peace Corps China!

Whatever the reason, I never expected to be a rice farmer.  Yet another thing to cross off the list.  At my site we grow corn, peanuts, and rice.  Corn is the crop we depend on the most, but I think that rice is the most interesting to harvest.  Unfortunately I wasn’t around for rice planting, but I was able to help my family with rice harvest.

Unlike our corn and our peanut fields, which are in the center of our village, the rice fields are further out, maybe 2 kilometers, in the surrounding plains.  I’m not sure if you recall my earlier post about God flooding the fields, but during the rainy season these low plains flood completely, turning my village into an island in a sea of swamp.  This can make life difficult, as getting to and from site is a hassle, and that is an understatement.  I’m sure I’ll write a blog post later about the difficulties of living in a swamp and just how thoroughly depressing it is to ride through mud and water for hours. 

But on a lighter note, back to rice!  Seriously, I think rice is awesome.  We eat rice almost every day here, to the point where other peace corps volunteers swear that once they return to America they will never eat rice again.  I am not of that mindset.  I still love rice and intend to eat it often back in America.  So once the rainy season ends and the fields drain, it is harvest time for rice.  Of all the crops we grow, we harvest rice last.  First we harvest the corn, then the peanuts, and then rice last.  Basically, in order to harvest the rice people in my village go out into the fields (called paraji in pular) with hand sickles.

not as much fun as you'd think

It is very labor intensive as you have to be constantly bent over, using one hand to grab the rice stocks, and the other to cut them with the sickle.  I was at it for about an hour before I had to take a very long break.  I do not envy the life of a rice farmer.

So after cutting the rice stocks you make them into bundles and then tie them up.  When all of the rice has been harvested, then we “lappugol maaro”.  This literally means “to beat rice”.  Apparently there is an English word for it: threshing.  This is the process of removing the rice grain from the shaft.  It’s interesting how many English words that have fallen out of use because they are agrarian in nature.  I am learning a lot about the English language by comparing it with the agricultural techniques I have learned here.  But seriously, what does it mean to “till”? Apparently “ussugol” in pular means to till, but I don’t know what that really means!  Oh well. 

As I was saying, after we cut all the stocks we go about threshing them.  As I have mentioned, it is literally translated to “beating rice” so you might be asking.  But Chris! Howsoever do you thresh rice?!  I’m glad you asked.  You beat it with a stick.  Like, a really big stick.  The sticks are usually a bit taller than I am, and about the thickness of a baseball bat.

So in Pular villages there are village work days called “kile”s, when basically everyone gathers in someone’s field to help them harvest.  In reciprocity the person who is hosting the kile cooks lunch for all of the workers.  It is a good way to score a pretty good lunch.

 So in the rice threshing kiles you basically grab a few of the bundles and put them in a pile.  After this everyone who is there to help forms a circle around this pile.  We then start just wailing on the rice pile.  Apparently this creates enough force to remove the grains from the stock. 

It is quite an exercise, but can be pretty fun.  The best part of it though is the solidarity that it breeds.  To be there as one of the community, beating rice, it’s like “I’ve made it! I’m finally integrated” and you are basically one of them. 

So there I was, hitting rice with a stick, when all of a sudden one of the men there said to me “Attend! Ensemble!” Which means “wait, together!”  We then synced up out strokes so that we hit the rice at the same time.  He then started chanting along with the beat to help us keep time.  As this is going on another person shouts out “Tournez! Which means “turn!”  So now after every strike of the rice we rotate counterclockwise.  So there I was, hitting rice in time with a man chanting and singing while turning around in a circle.  I felt like I was an old fashioned sailor on a ship singing sea shanties to keep the time while heaving to (“heaving to” is a nautical term, right Ellington?  I’ve been trying to read that sailing boat you gave me).

 

4 dudes in a dhingy

It was truly a magical moment, just being a part of a community, hitting out the beat together, helping make a living.  I went to bed that night very tired, but extremely content.

Bandafassi, Benoit, Bediks, Bannje, Beliefs

I thought I would talk to you all a bit about my day in Bandafassi with Benoit (I thought that his name was Benoir, which is the French word for a big pastic tub, which is awesome, then a friend apologetically told me otherwise, I was devastated).  Thanks a lot Jason, took a little bit of magic out of my life.  Anyway, it was one of those pleasant days when you have no real expectations, but are then pleasantly surprised.  So let me begin:

I was planning on going into Kedougou from my site for one reason or another.  Usually when I ride back to village from Kedougou I go through Bandafassi in order to hang out with friends I have there and see my Tokara (my name sake).  Because of this, usually when I go to Kedougou from site I take the straight road that cuts through the bush all the way.  But this time I had promised my friends in Bandafassi that I would pass through it the next time I rode back to Kedougou.  Usually when it’s time to go to the regional house I am out of steam and looking forward to hanging out with Americans and using things that require electricity and eating meat, so spending a day at another village on the way there can seem unappealing.  But I hadn’t been around for a while, so I thought it would be nice.  Now, my friends attend the school there, so they aren’t available until around 3:00.  I didn’t feel like milling around my village, so I thought I would ride in early and spend some time at the campement there, “the bedik”.   It’s a nice little campement with about 10 rooms and a small lounging area.  They sell cold drinks there and aren’t usually very busy, so I thought I would just drink a cold sprite and get to know the owner better.  She is a nice Bedik woman, I embarrassingly can’t remember her name, but I have only stopped by once or twice so I didn’t (and still don’t) know her very well.  She would be a good person to know, so I got to Bandafassi early and headed on over to the Bedik.

Hello Bandafassi

When I arrived there I put my bike down and walked into the little restaurant/sitting room/shade structure.  It’s a quaint little building with a small bar and a few tables with chairs around them.  I decided to put my backpack down and sit at one of the tables.  No one was there.  Hmm, what to do now?  I guess I could just go over to my friend’s house and hang out with the old people there.  As I was considering these things I see a man walk up.  He introduces himself as Benoit and says that his sister, the manager, is away at Dakar and while she is away he is in charge.  We start talking in Pular a little bit, I tell him I live in Nianghe, but am from America.  At this point he says that he actually speaks English, which is great because that means that we can have a real conversation. 

He told me that he is a Bedik man, and I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more about the Bediks in English.  So I ask him some pretty basic questions about life growing up in a Bedik village.  I was very interested in learning about the initiation ceremonies.  He said that they are not at any set date, but can be thrown at any time a boy is deemed worthy to become a man.  This could be at any age.  How does he prove this worth?  Apparently he has to demonstrate the ability to conduct himself as a man and his dedication to the village.  The example he gave was being able to carry a certain amount of wood up the mountain to the village, or to carry water or palm wine that same distance.

this hill

 Once everyone agrees that you have the qualifications of a man, they then throw the ceremony.  As an initiated man, to contribute to the village you have to carry logs of wood up the mountain every Thursday.  Along with this, you are granted access to one of the two secret houses on top of the mountain.  What is in the secret house?  I don’t know… it’s a secret.  After having been initiated for 5 years, you are then granted access to the second secret house.  Apparently it’s cooler or something because it’s even more secret than the first secret house.  Having access to this 2^nd secret house also makes you eligible for marriage.  This means that you aren’t supposed to marry until you have been initiated for at least 5 years.

At this point I ask him about his views on alcohol.  I forgot to mention, he is a university educated man, majoring in film making.  I’ve noticed a sharp difference in views of university educated men and those who have not received an education.  Thus I asked his opinion of his own culture as someone who has been far enough away from it to view it with a more objective eye.  Since drinking alcohol is a big part of Bedik culture, I wanted to know what he thought of it.  He said that Bediks have to go further and further to get palm wine.  Apparently Bediks and Bassaris harvest palm wine in different ways, and the Bedik way can kill the tree.  For this reason they have to go further and further to get their palm wine.  Benoit said how when he was young he would have to carry a 20 litre barrel for kilometers in order to bring back the palm wine.  Now people bike and motorcycle theirs back.  He jokingly said that pretty soon they would need to bring out helicopters in order to bring the palm wine back.  So I asked him if he himself drank alcohol.  He said, “oh yeah, of course I do, it’s part of being a Bedik… I actually have some palm wine right here.  The first day I got back I bought some to share with people.  Let’s drink it! It makes no sense to drink alone, I can always get more.”  He was very gracious so I agreed. I just sat back, sipped on some palm wine, which is called bannje in Pular, and learned some more about Bedik culture and religion.

At this point the conversation switched to religion.  I want again to say that this blog is my own personal views and that what I am about to describe is my impressions from what I heard, I don’t claim to be an expert on Bedik religious practices and could have totally misheard and misinterpreted what I was being told.  Anyway, so apparently in Bedik religion there are many gods and spirits.  One of their more important gods is the sky god.  But since the sky god is so big and so far away, it is difficult for your prayers to reach him.  Because of this it is helpful to have a benevolent spirit amplify your prayers.  To attract these spirits you create little stone shrines.  You build up a mound of stones and place a piece of iron in the middle.  This attracts the spirits called “Jaluns”.  After this shrine is built, if you see a stone or rock moving by itself, not being propelled by any force, that means that a Jalun lives within it.  You can bring this stone back with you to your hut and put it in the corner overnight (but what if your hut is a circle and thus has no corners?!?!).  Anyway, you put the stone in your hut and place three items in front of it: a feather, a small pile of millet, and human hair.  The next morning you check the Jalun and whatever is missing is what the Jalun demands of you.  So if the feather is gone, that means every time you pray you need to have a chicken with you to please the Jalun, and then the Jalun will help your prayers reach the sky.  If the millet is missing that means you must bring millet beer when you pray.  If the human hair is missing, that means that for your prayers to reach the sky you must sacrifice a human.  This means that the Jalun is actually an evil spirit and in order to protect yourself and your village from catastrophe you must expel the stone from your hut and from your village.

All in all it was a very pleasant experience.

  It was one of those pleasant chance meeting that you weren’t expecting, but because of that make them more enjoyable.  I spent a great afternoon, drinking palm wine, speaking English, and learning and the Bedik culture.  He said he would love to practice his English as there aren’t many people in Bandafassi who speak English, and I said I wanted to learn more Bedik, so the next time I am in Bandafassi I’ll make sure to stop by for a bit of language exchange.  And who knows, maybe I can get some more palm wine!

Na'i din yakay hudo suudu an!

The Rainy Season is over!  Also, the cold dry season is over too.  Darn.  That means that it is the hot dry season.  Prepare to sweat, it’s gonna get hot in here.  But shifting away from the rainy season, we no longer are growing any field crops.  The women in my village actually started a beautiful garden near the well in my village.  It was all their initiative, they secured the funds, and they water it multiple times a day.

do you have to grow jaxatu though?!

But I’m not going to talk about that now.  Do you know what I’m going to talk about?  Cows.  That’s right, it’s another cow blog post!!!! 

As I’m sure you’re acutely aware, I am a cattle herder/sometimes farmer.  But though we grow corn, rice, and peanuts, our cows are our most important asset in village.  We even give them names!!!  I am ashamed to say that I haven’t spent enough time with them lately and can’t even distinguish Ibrahima from Mamadou.  During the rainy season every morning we would wake up, untie the cows, and then shoo them off into the bush.  Someone would go and look after them the whole time until evening , when we would herd them back to the cow field to tie them up to stakes we drill into the ground (or fallen trees or bushes or whatever is free standing).  Apparently it’s called a “wouro” in Pular, but I’m not sure if the name fits because I always assumed that wouro’s were enclosed with a fence.  Nah, we just tie them up to logs and stuff.  We also move this cow camp throughout the rainy season.  We continue this process from when we first plant all the way until rice is harvested (June-December).

But that season is over!  It’s kind of bittersweet because now I don’t have to tie up and untie the cows every day, but I also don’t get to, it can be pretty fun.  So what do the cows do these days?!  I don’t really know.  We shoo them off into the bush and they just kind of wander around until the next rainy season when we spend a day adventuring through the woods looking for our wayward cows.  So I rarely see our cows these days. 

  I actually heard a story from RPCV Cameron related to this (sorry if I butcher it).  So Cameron was hanging out with his rather elderly father one day.  All of a sudden his father jumps to his feet in surprise.  Now, this is an old man, the kind that doesn’t move very fast, but he jumped to attention.  He exclaimed, “that’s my cow!!!”  To Cameron’s confused look he added “last rainy season he didn’t come back, but he came back this year!”  He was very excited.  The moral of the story is that this particular cow spent two years living out in the bush before just deciding to wander on back home.

So there aren’t many cows around, but you still see a few.  They come in and out of the village as they please, so you see them around.  But since they have free range it leads to a particular problem.  “Na’I din yakay hudo suudu an! (The cows eat my roof thatch!)"  Some mornings I’ll wake up at the incredibly unreasonable hour of 6am.  And what wakes me up at this god-forsaken hour?  The slow chomp and rustling of the thatch on my roofs.  That’s right, the cows will walk up to your roof thatch and start eating it.  Dude, cow, what’s up?  Can’t you see that this is the only thing keeping rain out of my hut in the rainy season?  It already leaks enough!  Then you’ll have to get up out of bed, unlock the door, walk outside, and give them a thorough “ATCHA!!!-ing”  Then when I eat breakfast in the morning my host mom will say “hey, I saw you this morning.  Cows eating your roof thatch huh?  Yeah, that happens.”  But in her defense if she ever actually sees the cows eating my thatch she will run over and try to ACHA them.  I mean, cows eating my thatch doesn’t happen often, but it still does, and when it does it sucks. 

It does lead to a fun greeting though, “Est-ce que na’i din yakaali hudo suudu maa? (have the cows not eaten your roof thatch?)” 

Village life can be peculiar.  Let this sink in: cows are trying to slowly eat my house.

Starlight and Satellites

Nights are an interesting time while at site.  While in America you can just flip the lights on and continue as usual, but that is not the case here (you know, no electricity).  As such, you become acutely aware of when the sun sets every day and really notice the days shortening in the winter and lengthening in the summer.  You become far more aware of the phases of the moon and its rising and setting, as it can greatly affect how you spend your nights.  It’s really shocking to me now to think back on my life in America when I never really knew what the phase the moon was in.  I didn’t need to.  But here, it is very important.  Some full-moon nights are bright enough where you can see most anything.  It’s light enough to bike without a flashlight (but watch out for hyenas).  Also, you notice those new-moon nights or nights when the moon hasn’t risen above the hills and just how truly dark it is.  The difference is palpable.

Night is a time for hanging out.  Different compounds go about this in different ways.  Some play music on their battery-powered radios.  Some make aataya and talk (I will sometimes drink it with them, but I don’t really like drinking caffeine at night because then I can never fall asleep).  Some shell peanuts while discussing the day’s news.  Regardless of the activities, there is always a lot of talking involved.  Unfortunately for me, about 65% of my communication is non-verbal; pointing and hand-gestures and whatnot.  Yeah, this doesn’t work at night time unless it is a full moon.  You might think this is discouraging, but it might be those pitch-black cloudless nights I cherish the most, because it is great for stargazing.

This has become one of my favorite activities in village.  Usually when I go to someone else’s compound they will put out a mat on the ground and insist that I lie down.  Lying down I can look up at the stars in all their glory.  Perhaps this new-found fascination won’t make sense to those who grew up in or live in small towns.  I grew up in the suburbs of San Diego, a highly populated region that meant that there was a lot of light pollution.  Looking up at night you would see a dull glow 360 degrees about the horizon.  On a good night you might see a couple of dozen stars.  That is one of the downsides of living in a big city, there’s never really a reason to look up.  You would be surprised how infrequently people look up.

But since my village has no electricity and the closest electrified town is Kedougou, 18km away, there isn’t really any light pollution.  This means that on those moonless cloudless nights you can see hundreds, maybe thousands of stars.  I wish I could present a photograph to show you, but it’s really difficult without a good camera or a long exposure or I don’t know.  Anyway, you can see the constellations, the wandering planets, even the faint line of the Milky Way.  But my two favorite things to see are shooting stars and satellites.

 

Once again, growing up in a city with a lot of light pollution, seeing shooting stars is very rare.  I never really realized how frequent they are in a clear sky.  It is a rare night here in village when I lie on my mat looking up at the skies that I don’t see a shooting star.  I usually see multiple, every night.  And I never really realized the variety of them.  All the shooting stars I had seen were just a quick line of light that would streak across the night’s sky.  But I have seen shooting stars that were so defined you could see a bright orange tail burning behind them and around them.  They are quiet brilliant, like the falling stars in Howl’s Moving Castle

I also love to see satellites.  I didn’t realize until coming to Senegal that you can actually see them traversing the heavens at night.  According the and XKCD whatif (http://what-if.xkcd.com/60/), on a clear night there's virtually always a satellite visiblet.  It just looks like a normal star that slowly moves across the sky.  It is a testament to humanity that we are able to even alter the very foundations of the great celestial and left our mark on the infinite. 

And it’s on those starry nights looking up into forever that I realize just how awesome I am.  We are all made of stardust right?

One Year In Country

It was one year ago today that I first landed in Senegal.  I can still remember the feelings of uncertainty and excitement I felt as our plane began its descent into Dakar and the first gleaming city lights could be seen through the fogging window.  And do you know what I first noticed when I got out of the plane as the first hints of morning light turned the skies from jet black to brightening gray?  How humid it was.  It was like I took my first step off of that airplane and was hit by a wave of humidity.  Dude, it's like 6AM, why is it already so hot?  Of course now having lived here for a year I know that the heat of Dakar in March is nothing compared with Kedougou (or anywhere else in the country) in May or June, but at that time it was like the climate was hoisting a welcoming sign "Bienvenue a Senegal!", Africa is hot.

I have been told by many of my Peace Corps friends here that I am not the same man I was when I first got to country, and I would tend to agree with them.  I do not believe that anyone could spend a year in Africa and not come back a changed man.

So how have I changed?  Well, to start with, my hair is significantly longer.  This is what happens when you don't have your hair cut for over a year.  I have been asked "was this something you consciously decided when you got here, to not cut your hair?"  And my answer is no, it's just something that kind of happened.  Mainly because I am just pretty lazy and can't build up the energy to get it cut.  Also, I really really want to rock the top-knot.  Something like this, I think my hair is long enough:

I think by virtue of the top-knot I will become a samurai... right?

But in all seriousness, I think that spending a year in Senegal has made me more confident, persevering, and less fatally afraid of failure.  I hope you don't mind me adopting the old 5th grade model of the 5-paragraph essay in order to convey these thoughts.  You know, the first paragraph is an introduction (this paragraph), the next 3 expand upon the 3 points you allude to in your introduction, and the final paragraph is the conclusion.  I always thought that having an introduction and a conclusion was overly redundant, but who I am to criticize such a tried and true method.

Being a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal has made me a more confident individual because it thrust me into an unfamiliar, uncomfortable, highly confusing situation that was, to be overly dramatic, sink or swim.  I like to tell other volunteers that now that we've gotten through install, there's nothing we can't do.  Let me explain.  Imagine being in a car with all of the possessions you will need to spend two years at site, slowly rolling your way to your new village.  This place will be your home for the next two years, for good or for bad.  You don't know anyone there yet but you are going to be put in a family that will become... well, your family.  It's like going off to your first semester of college as a freshman again, except its not a few random roommates you will be living with, but a whole new family.  Compound on that the fact that though you've studied the language for 2 months, you are still very very far from fluency and can really only say your basic needs.  That first day, as the Peace Corps car drove off I couldn't help but think to myself, "...now what?"  Because there was literally no road map ahead for what I should be doing.  I suppose I was supposed to be getting to know my village and trying to find work partners, but that is easier said than done when feeling a bit stranded in a new environment.  It's like, my whole life I've been in the passenger seat.  At school I did what i was told, did my work, took my tests, graduated.  In work the person above me would tell me to do something, and I'd do it.  Sure, I was working, but I was never the one steering the car.  Now, in the Peace Corps, is the first time that I am in the driver seat.  And I feel like that is a very difficult transition to make after a lifetime of passivity, having to actively search out your work.  Our services are what we make of them.  Sure, there's frameworks and we're told different types of projects we can do, but it's on us to try to figure out what our role is in the village.

I'm sorry, that got a bit tangential.  To get back on topic, I learned to blaze my own path.  Those first few weeks were extremely difficult, but I got through it.  And this is where confidence comes in.  Those first few weeks might have been the hardest of my life, but I succeeded.  And if I am able to thrive in a situation where I am in a foreign country, a foreign culture, with barely enough language to get by, then what can't I do?  It is this knowledge that gives me confidence.  Confidence in myself.

I believe that my time here as a Peace Corps volunteer has made me more persevering.  My arguments for this are similar to the ones in my previous paragraph about confidence.  Those first few weeks were very difficult, but it still can be very tough at time.  I have lived at site for over 9 months, but there are still those days.  I'm sure other peace corps volunteers know what I'm talking about.  Those days when you just don't want to talk in Pular (or Wolof, or Jaxanke, or whatever).  Those days when you just want to sit in your room and read.  Read ENGLISH.  I am currently reading Isaac Azimov's Foundation series (I finally got around to reading them after you suggesting them, Robbie, it only took like 4 years).  I've started warning people to not suggest good books to me, because if I start one, I just want to read.  With the freedoms we're granted as a Peace Corps volunteer, I could realistically just hide out in my room all day reading.  But I don't.  True, I'll often take "naps" that might be a bit longer than they should be, but I always make time to get out and interact with my village.  And that's what perseverance is.  It's pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and doing what you know you should even if you really don't want to.  And there are days I really don't, but I persevere.

I also think that my time in Senegal has made me far less fatally afraid of failure.  Because I do fail. Often.  I fail most every day, whether it's expressing myself through language, understanding a cultural norm, or otherwise.  But it's something I've had to get over.  You can ask my Mom, I have never been too inclined to failure.  This isn't bragging because that disinclination verges more on fear than dedication.  I fear failure to the point where I won't even try, or try so half-heartedly that I can play it off as not truly a failure, but me just not trying.  That's why growing up I would never truly try to master something, or could never ask the pretty girl to the dance, because the fear of rejection is in a way a mask of the fear of failure.  That is why, even in Senegal, I am often reluctant to speak in Pular because I don't want to make mistakes and look foolish.  But I do make mistakes.  And I am foolish.  These are things I have had to get over as a Peace Corps volunteer because I would literally be unable to get anything done if I was always afraid to make mistakes when speaking Pular.  It is still a constant struggle, something that I have to consider and overcome daily, but it's the constant use of a muscle that makes it stronger.  In that same way, each time I rise above that fear of failure I become a little better at it, and it becomes a little easier.  As we would say in Pular "Seeda Seeda" (little by little).

In conclusion.  No, I always hated concluding paragraphs that began with "in conclusion", it's so tautologically inane.  Anyway, my first year in Senegal has been a growing experience.  I don't believe that I am the man I was when I got out of that airplane a year ago, and I'm glad of it.  This last year has been the most challenging in my life, but also the most rewarding.  It's taught me to get over the demons that have been haunting me since my youth and carve my own swath to being a better man.  It's never too late to tackle those issues that you've been carrying for so long.  It's never too late to reinvent yourself.  And it doesn't have to be something big like coming to Africa, it's those small things, those little victories that build upon themselves like a speck of snow sliding down a hill, or a trickle of water than becomes a torrent.  It just takes the willpower to start.  I'm sorry for being a bit overly philosophical, and please call me out if I seem ostentatious.  It has been a year of ups and downs, highs and lows, deep in a funk and grand funk railroad (ask me about it later), but it's an experience I wouldn't give up for the world.