Comfort can be a dangerous thing. That is because effort takes… well,
effort. Comfort is easier, more
practical. Putting oneself out there,
trying new things, meeting new people, it can be uncomfortable. That is because we find comfort in
repetition, in the things we know; we take comfort in the common. Trying new things, meeting new people, it
introduces so many variable, so many unknowns, that it is hard not to pass it
up and avoid it altogether. I find
myself in this mindset often, and it is part of the personal growth I wanted to
achieve during my time here in Senegal.
The will to leave my hut and greet people, to meet tons of new people
and experience something completely foreign from everything I've known. A new culture, new food, new people. I wanted to break away from the
comfortable. But the thing with personal
growth is that it is something you have to do every day. Every day you have to wake up determined to be
the person you want to be. It is very
difficult not to relapse back into complacency, to shirk potentiality for
comfort. This is a story that highlights
that struggle.
Now that the rainy season has truly and fully come, the work
of all Peace Corps volunteers cranks up a notch. For agriculture volunteers it’s the planting
season, their time to extend seed varieties and introduce better practices for
farming. As for us health volunteers,
rains bring the mosquitoes, and mosquitoes bring malaria. This is why during the rainy season just about
every health volunteer shelves their other projects for a while to focus on
malaria work. In Kedougou we are working
on a project called PECADOM Plus. I’m
not sure if you remember from my blog posts from last year, it was when I drove
around the Saraya district to random isolated villages to shadow malaria health
workers. This year the program has
expanded to the entire Kedougou region, so I have more localized work around my
village. As such I am partnering with
the Thiabedji heath post to supervise seven DSDOMs there; the malaria health
workers. This included overseeing the
practicum training of the DSDOMs and formation of women’s support groups in the
villages where the DSDOMs work.
Alright, now that the introduction is out of the way, the
background being established, to the actual story itself! So I found myself, as I often do, on a
bush path bicycling under the hot African sun. Although it’s rainy season, it is still
really hot. It’s always hot. You get used to it. So I was biking back from the Thiabedji
health post, which is about 18 kilometers from my village. I had just spent the whole day, and the 3
days before it, supervising the DSDOM practicums, and was understandably tired
from it. As I was leaving the health
post I realized that my water bottle was empty.
This usually wouldn’t be that bad of a thing, but since it is Ramadan,
it is pretty awkward and somewhat impolite to ask to fill my water bottle. During Ramadan, Muslims fast both food and
water from sun-up to sun-down every day.
I’m sure that they would have given me water if I’d have asked, but I
didn’t want to seem inappropriate. So I
figured, it’s only 18 kilometers, how hard could it be? Right?
So back to where I left off in the story, I was biking
through the bush, half way back to my site.
This was about the point where it hit me just how truly thirsty I
was.
still unamused
I had been working for 4 days,
biking back and forth, just generally fatigued.
I figured that when I got to Guingara, which is about 5k from my
village, and conveniently Christian-Animist, I’d ask for water there. And that’s when it happened. As I approached I heard singing and chanting
and the clanging of bells. I crested a
hill and saw before me a large crowd of people, seemingly milling around. When I got there I realized that they were all
using hand-hoes to remove weeds from the field.
I had stumbled upon a Bedik kille.
So kille is a Pular word meaning a group work day. Basically everyone gets together to help
someone with a task, whether it’s plowing or threshing or thatching a
roof. Bedik killes take it up a notch in
that they have people dress up in traditional grass shirts and bark shorts
wearing masks and clanging bells.
they also like to dance
And
they drink palm wine. I mean, a lot of
palm wine. When I got there a lot of
them were already fairly thoroughly intoxicated, which made them that much more
enjoyable.
I got off my bike and asked for some water. A woman grabbed a gourd bowl and dunked it in
a benoir to pull out some water for me, which I drank greedily. Only in retrospect did I notice how murky the
water was and that we were right next to a river. Yeah, I think I drank river water that she
was using to wash her clothes. Oh well,
we’ve all had giardia, right? They also
brought out palm wine and offered it to me.
As I was still thirsty and it seemed cleaner than the murky laundry
water I accepted. So there I was, having
quenched my thirst, ready to bike back to my village. They told me to stay and hang out and drink
palm wine and get to know people, and that’s when my dilemma arose.
See, I really wanted to get back to my site. I really wanted to lie down on my bed, drink
some lemonade from drink mixes, maybe eat some beef jerky and read a little
(Lord of the Rings anyone?) Maybe I’d
take a nap, who knew? But I did know
that comfort was calling in the face of activity. I was so set on getting back to my room. After all, I didn’t know these people, I’d
have to awkwardly greet them, and I wouldn’t really know what to do. In other words, it would put me out of my
comfort zone. So I thanked them for the
water, said I’d see them when I’d see them, and then got on my bike and started
to ride off into the sunset. Well, I was
actually heading east and it was 3:00, but all dramatic exits should be into
the sunset, shouldn’t they? But alas,
life is never quite as epic as you want it to be. Contemplating the dramatics of my exit, I got on my bike and was
gone.
It was about 150 meters later when I stopped. Why was I biking back to my hut again? So that I could take a nap? So that I could avoid talking to people and
read a book? Is this why I had come to
the Peace Corps? I had wanted to get an
in with the Bediks for a long time, but now that the opportunity had arisen, I
was skulking away. That’s what I
do. I imagine all these great things
that I will do, make all these plans and form all these ideas, but when it
comes to actually executing them, I can never pull the trigger. This is because I am always tempted with
the promise of comfort. Like I said
before though, personal growth isn’t deciding you want to be a certain way, and
then bam, you start acting like it. It
is a daily struggle, a mindset you have to renew every morning. I have forgotten that lately, accepting
complacency rather than striving for better.
All this ran through my head as I biked away from the work party. And you know what, I am proud to say that I
turned around and biked back. Sure, it
would be an effort, but I knew that at the end of the day I’d be happier
this way. Even more so, I knew that if I
didn’t turn back, I would always regret it.
So this is an anecdote highlighting a daily struggle I find
myself in. I regret to say that many
days I lose that battle and hide out a bit too long in my hut, or cut my
conversations short because I don’t want to trudge through Pular, but it is
those little victories that reinvigorate us.
That give us the confidence that maybe it isn’t as uphill of a battle as
we think. Sometimes you have to turn
around and get back in the fight.
This is also the story of how I got really drunk with a
bunch of Bedik dudes in the middle of the wilderness and helped them plow a
field for fonio. It’s a story of how I
spent an afternoon getting to learn about the Bedik people and making
friends. The story of how I got a new
Bedik name: Jean Baptiste doondu Keita (apparently in Bedik culture all male
children are named according to when they are born. Doondu is the name for the third-born
male. They then also have a Christian name). And lastly, this is the story of how I
stumbled back to my village just as they were breaking fast and was able to
keep my composure through the whole thing.
After all, it was just another day in the Peace Corps. Sure most days are pretty boring, but there
is always the chance of experiencing something truly extraordinary. What matters is that we are bold enough to
take the chances to experience them and not let them slip by.
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