Homecoming

notes from field journal

Arrived in Sabualla late last night and something just didn’t seem familiar. Now that I’ve seen my home in the light, wow. The rainy season makes the previously sandy wasteland a veritable oasis. My backyard was peppered with poo and calitropis last week, now there is poo, calitropis and of a prickly green carpet deathstars (like burrs at home but capable of lethal wounds when underfoot). Green is green, though and I’ll never curse ground cover, spiked or no.

My garden, as expected, is mostly trashed. There might be a melon and something that looks like okra. An okra. Singular. I planted ten. Donna and I helped weed and water each others plots and managed to compose our fist EE song. It is meant to be performed by Jack Black and is dedicated to our foul-mouthed coordinators:

Cowpeas!
Why did you have to die?!?
Wasn’t my love enough for you?!
I paid my dues
I spread poo for you
I walk a kilometer or two…

More verses to come, including a bridge about a tender tendressa (a spiky thorn from the death star plant).

So much happened during center days in Kaedi. In short, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes, had to skip my first meal due to illness (not bad after a three week healthy streak), bellydanced for the talent show despite illness, and ran around semi naked in the rain. The last bit certainly redeemed the rest, as did an encouraging interview with the Country Director, Obie. He strikes me as so genuine and unapologetic, and was a perfect brain to pick about early termination, the infamous ET for short.

Sometimes, volunteers wake up in the morning and realize, “I don’t want to be in Africa anymore.” I cannot imagine this sentiment, but it is common, especially here in Mauritania. We boast one of the highest drop-out rates on the continent, if not in all of Peace Corps. Irrationally, it wounds me personally when someone considers leaving, as if I did not do enough to make them stay. I have talked several people off the fence but am unsure if my encouragement is simply unwelcome guilt and inadvertent peer pressure. Obie’s stance was clear: don’t stay if you are miserable, the condition is contagious. Leave now or suck it up. I wonder how his candor rubs other trainees, but for me, it was refreshing and thought-provoking. I’ll have to process it and come to my own conclusions. For now, we are 55 trainees from a class of 60.

Field trip to Rindiao on the way home from Kaedi was fabulous – palm and mango trees, grapefruit, shade, and good company. Lots of food, lots of giggles but most striking was an EE session in which I imagined life as a volunteer. I was in a classroom teaching (or rather helping teach) and forming sentences in French and executing lesson plans and interacting with professors and begging for resources. I’m thoroughly excited for the challenge, not yet scared of the inevitable pitfalls.