The election and... whats up right now.

Warning guys, this is a long one...

Today I found a warawara in my underwear. On my body. Under my jeans, while sitting in my bed. … I have no idea what I can possibly say about that to make it feel less completely wrong. … But, on the bright side, I guess they don’t bite or crawl under your skin or have burning poison on their feet (all possibilities I considered.) Still, totally violating, and I feel a little like I did last year of just wanting to crawl into my mosquito net and never leave.

Clearly, the bugs are coming back. The last several days have reached 95 in the shade, which I must admit bums me out. I was really getting used to the comfort of cold season and childishly, I feel it’s a little unfair that hot season should start in February. Well, it’s March tomorrow.

So, probably more interesting to those of you wondering about Senegal, we just had a Presidential Election here. Peace Corps volunteers were forbidden from going to the regional capitals, and there was certainly reason to keep us out of Dakar, but I’m fairly certain Saint Louis remained safe and relatively calm. The last count I heard was that 11 people were killed in the riots organized by the opposition to current President Abdoulaye Wade. I wish I had more to tell, but I don’t know much. Frankly, if you google it you’ll probably be able to learn more than I can tell you. (Side note, Microsoft Word does not yet recognize google as a word, but does recognize the proper noun Google.) Here’s what I do know: there were 14 candidates total, and it’s hard to say if any of the other 13 have the kind of unified support that could present a legitimate challenge to Wade. I mean, Senegal is doing quite well compared to all of its neighbors in terms of political and financial stability. Wade has been President for something like 12 years, in which I assume Senegal has largely continued to develop. There are certainly problems here, like regular power and water cuts in the cities. The stress of these problems is compounded in people’s minds by what appears to be unnecessary spending on things like Senegal’s Renaissance Monument among others. Please google that one. There’s more… Anyway the election was the 26^th and no one got a large enough percentage of the votes to be declared winner. So, there will be a run-off election in March. I believe it is between only the top two candidates from the first election, who (I believe) are Wade and a guy named Macky Sall.

Interesting stuff, to be sure. I’m grateful that Senegal remains a peace-loving country, and since the election there have been no blaring problems. In fact, we were immediately informed that travel to regional capitals is back on. Which means Sunday night I’m eating a four-cheese pizza. Inshallah.

I’m a little sorry I haven’t blogged in so long. I know there are some of you who are legitimately interested in what I have to say here. And I’m grateful for that. I find that as the year mark approaches, I feel more safe and grounded here than ever, and simultaneously more mystified by the experience than ever. They say most volunteers have a mid-service crisis, and I can vouch that many of my friends here are going through something like what I am. It’s a question of expectations meeting reality, generally. But the more I think about it, my expectations were pretty amorphous, and reality is SOOO amorphous! There’s just this text-book idealism that most of us come in with, that can only really BE amorphous. Like, “I’m gonna go to Africa where there are hungry kids and sick people and I’m going to help them! And also, they’re gonna teach me to dance and I’ll speak their interesting language and eat their interesting food and make interesting friends!” There’s a bit of an inherent assumption of benefaction, that now—to me, in this little context—feels arrogant. First, let me say that I think in a lot of cases Peace Corps volunteers ACTUALLY help feed hungry kids and help people not get sick or have better access to care when they are. I just happened to end up in a village full of well-fed kids with relatively easy access to health-care, which their families make use of! Which is WONDERFUL! But, so, now what do I do? I do dance with them, and they LOVE when I flash my suur bu ndaw (small skirt, a lacy open-weave wrap skirt worn under a real skirt. By the way, this is with the women only). I also seem to be doing alright speaking their interesting language, though I’m still far from fluent. I eat their interesting food, but seriously, ceeb u jeen every single fricking day for lunch has long ceased to be interesting. And I’m totally over the initial gross-excitement of eating intestines and brain. It JUST grosses me out now. I’m sorry. It’s true. Largely the food is good and filling, and for that I am TRULY grateful. In a lot of ways (despite a four month long cold, thank you sandy-windy cold season) I think I’m healthier now, and certainly stronger, than I’ve been in some time, just from all the physical activity. As for the last point, yes, I have certainly made interesting friends. Interesting Peace Corps volunteer friends and interesting Senegalese friends both here in village and in Saint-Louis proper. And MAN has that been an experiment in letting go.

See, making a friend at some level is all about letting go and trusting. I think largely we do this unconsciously. We feel a connection with someone and slowly but surely we get more and more comfortable with just being ourselves around that person. We take for granted the basis of the connection we share. Every friend I’ve ever had in America had some level of shared cultural history as a physical counterpoint to this abstract concept of a connection. I have always assumed some level of shared humanity would do the same for people from any culture. And I still do believe that. However, I am almost daily faced with the challenge of letting go of any specific thing I took for granted as shared. I find discrepancies I never would have expected and also commonalities I didn’t expect. It’s a hugely humbling experience, this. And sweet. Seeing my good friend Sali behave passive-aggressively with her boyfriend in exactly the same self-defeating way I’ve caught myself behaving… didn’t see that one coming (but why not?). My once good friend who seemed to be a strong, modern, hard-working woman turn away from me because I refused to do all the work in the garden myself and bring in a bunch of money to buy a bunch of stuff we don’t need… did NOT see that one coming. By the way, I think the most important connection we share is one that has no cultural basis. No namable or knowable commonality, but simply that legit fact of unity. As Greg Fergusson put it in “Between a Bridge and a River,” maybe a hundred years ago we were both soup molecules in the same bowl.

(okay, hang in there, I’m feeling a link between some weird abstract stuff here…)

It’s also hugely humbling to constantly have people’s perceptions and judgements of me thrown in my face. From people who have NEVER met me before to people who have known me for 9 months, judgement is a fickle, inconsistent, and impersonal thing. Seynabou tell’s me I need to eat more because people will think I don’t live in a good home if I don’t put some weight on. Random jay-kat (salesman) in Thies tells me to stop eating my ice-cream because my belly is big. Ami Kole tell’s me my body is perfect the way it is. Within ten minutes I can have one person compliment me on my fluency in Wolof and another make fun of my lack of comprehension. I have people praise whatever work I AM engaged in, then I have people who accuse me of sitting in my room and eating my money all day. It’s truly enough to make your head spin. And it has. But it’s such a freeing thing to be so openly judged! I think it was the ice-cream guy in Thies that truly made it click. Made it such a living undeniable truth that NO ONE’s criticism or praise can touch you. It usually has nothing to do with you anyway.

(I’m still going here)

So, here’s a thing I’ve been seeing in my ascension. I’m CONSTANTLY making plans!! What to do immediately after I get up, what I want to actually accomplish that day, that week, by the end of my two years. It’s exhausting, when I take it seriously. When I pay attention to it. Thank GOD for letting me see this. It can do its thing and be background noise, but I don’t have to pay attention to it! I’ll still get up and do something when I’m done, and if there’s something I need to accomplish that day, it will come back up and I will act on it if I can, and then usually something else happens. Again, I know, this is not ground-breaking stuff. But I swear, it’s like I live on another planet here and life is constantly being redefined in its every aspect. Plus, let’s be honest, we’re always re-learning and re-learning the important stuff, right? Until we don’t anymore, right, Amrita? The thing is I’m on this other planet for a limited time and there’s some stuff I’d like to actually accomplish. Like actually accomplishing something. And figuring out some personal stuff while I go. So, it’s like this ghost hanging in my mind all the time, juggling what I already have going on toward those ends, what happened ba paree (‘til complete), and what I can do in the immediate or distant future. But, oh my GOSH it’s so simple, I’m missing the magic of NOW by trying to figure out what to DO with the NOW!

Wait. DANG IT! I’ve totally derailed myself again! Now it’s NOW! … This is what I’m doing now, so what is it I wanted to say to tie these three things together? Let’s see, there’s the beautiful and ludicrous experience of seeing my own expectations juxtaposed with reality (and I didn’t even mention how CRAZY it is when reality totally offers me up on a plate exactly what it is I was wanting, to the silliest detail). Then there’s the freedom of seeing other’s expectations of me as totally separate FROM me. Then there’s the distancing from reality of constantly engaging in half-effective plan making. This is some post-modern madness, man (see my paper there-on from Sophomore year Seminar (I’m currently re-reading the book. “White Noise” by Don DeLillo. Recommended). It’s all about freedom, isn’t it? And strength, beauty, peace. All just in letting go! Sailing, flying and burning with LIFE and LOVE.

Here’s a self-judgement. I’m scared enough to post this that I’m gonna re-read it before I do. But in that way it’s perfect too. There’s not enough room here for everything I feel like sharing right now, but a big part of that is that I’m SOooooo not into self-censorship right now, that I’m GOING to post this.

Much love, my darlings. I’ll be home in two months!! WAHAHHHH!!!!!

P.S. Some cool stuff:

·         A baby sheep licked my hand and sucked on my finger. So soft!

·         My friends family “guard dog” is my good friend. Which is AMAZING. And surely totally amuses all my village friends. He perks up his head and squiggles his little tail when I walk in and he soaks up some lovin’ like nothing. So good for my heart. And hopefully a good example set for the kids.

·         Trees are on and poppin’. Pictures when I have better internet. I also planted some carrots, hot peppers and collard greens yesterday.

·         Check out the picture of my new kitchen “nook” (shelf, really), again when I have better internet. Totally makes my room, and my friends think it was a brilliant use of abundant natural materials. Hopefully this is an inspiration to creativity. Or even just copying. I mean, I copied the idea from my friend Marie down in Tambacounda.

·         Aida is upwardly mobile. She can get herself vertical and trundle around when she has something to lean against. She’s even starting to babble in ways that make sense. Like, almost saying my name, almost saying “lunch” and “give me.” She mostly adores me, but today she got really mad at me because I stopped giving her pieces of raw onion (she was just throwing them in the sand).

·         A renewed sense of the preciousness of every single moment and every single person.