We live in a time paradox here in
Senegal. Some days I am sitting in my hut, watching the sweat drip
down my chest and listening to my clock slowly tick. It is as
if the hot, thick, humid air makes my limbs and the second hands of
my clock move slower. Tick tock, tick tock.... Is it really only 3
o'clock!
Or on days where all I am doing is
sitting and waiting. For a car to leave, for a market trip to start, for
lunch to be served.
The other day I had a particularly long
wait on a velvet, hard seat in a motionless car from 10 am to 3:30
pm. These 5 and a half hours were just for the car to leave. In the
smelly Dakar garage we sat with the window barely cracked open so as
to ignore all of the eager fruit and random item sellers from
bothering us. Not that it stops them.
Needless to say, I have become very
good at doing nothing. You have to here. Patiently waiting for the
car that holds 7 people to fill up, myself and 2 fellow volunteers
mainly sat and stared, watching all of the well dressed Senegalese
calmly get out of taxis and to our despair, load into cars going to
Banjul or Kaolack. These fancy people would never venture out to
Tambacounda, or other far, inland areas where the heat is more
brutal, the electricity more likely to shut off and the roads
rougher. So we waited.
The same banana sellers came by for a
5th time with toothless grins and aggressive words,
persisting that this time we really needed to buy bananas. Cute
little girls in second hand (or rather 'fourth hand') American
clothing passed by selling cold water packets- for this I gave in and
spent the nickel.
Eventually we left and started the 500
km ride to Tambacounda, sitting in the same seat I had already been
sitting in for 5 ½ hours, my tailbone already bruised and my mind
already thinking-this day must have 32 hours in it.
But here is where the paradox comes in.
I have been here for 6 months already! I am a quarter of a way
through and I can not believe it! It seems like it was just a few
weeks ago I was eating my last delicious over-sized American sandwich
at the airport in Washington DC, nervously chatting with my fellow
PCVs. And my first terrifying night in village seems to have been
yesterday. But that occurred months ago! And how far I have come since then.
On a daily basis I struggle to stretch
my mind back to the morning to remember what I did and realize I
have accomplished nothing that day. Yet that is not true. Everything
here is done in baby steps and each small step is a gigantic feat.
In six months I have semi- learned a
new language and improved upon another. I have read over 20 books. I
have made new friends from all over the world, young and old. I have
gotten up to doing 60 push ups a day. I have learned about malaria,
Islam, skin diseases, Senegalese health care, Senegalese culture and
much more. I can now productively help cook several Senegalese meals.
I can successfully wash my clothing by hand, taking away the mildew
smell. I have even learned how to carry water on head (well I still
have to hold on with one hand).
Making this partial list of things I
have learned over the past 6 months has made me partially realize the reason
for this time paradox. Getting things done here is hard. It takes
time to do the smallest thing like traveling 200 miles, and it takes
a lifetime or longer to get people to wash their hands after going to
the bathroom. That is why days feel so incredibly long while months so short. When looked at individually and on the daily, things
take ages to get done making the weeks and the months pass by quicker. A successful day in the US equates to the same amount of work as a successful month in Senegal.
Now I know this sounds slightly illogical but one thing that I know for sure is that this next year and a half will pass by quicker than I can say, 'Inchallah'.
