THE FINAL (?) POST!

I find it a little bit humorous that I updated so much more when I had MUCH less reliable/accessible internet…

That said, yes, I did make it back to the states; yes, I’ve been home for 3 whole weeks; yes, I am happy to be home but also have mixed feelings about not being in Senegal anymore… let me just tell you what I’ve been up to.

I got home on May 17th, after a surprisingly smooth voyage through 3 different airports and successful transport of my kora as well (what are the chances of that!?) and walked out of the terminal right as my family was arriving! Starting in Paris, I was surrounded by herds of white people—and thought I recognized each and every one of them. It’s psychologically proven that a person of one race can see more nuances in the facial features of others of that same race; I think that, because it had been so long since I’d seen so many people of my own race, I recognized all these features and kept thinking everyone was someone I knew. It was bizarre. So arriving in Burlington as these 3 strangely-familiar but probably-not-people walked towards me with surprised looks on their faces and open arms was quite confusing to me. My brother’s about a foot taller than when I left, but other than that it felt oddly…normal.

I visited my grandparents and the Pearls, and then went back to my real home—not some Senegalese family’s house that even taxi drivers can’t find with the street address, not a house-turned-study-abroad-program-schoolroom, not a round cement hut covered with a straw roof containing one mattress that I have all to myself the family sleeps outside, not a tent placed under a mango tree and carefully lined with blankets in the 100 degree weather, not a huge empty room with a tin roof and me in the middle surrounded by all the children of the village, not a little room on the roof of a boarding house next door to goats and one of the only hot-water showers in Dakar—this was my real home, with MY family and kittycats and a dwarf hamster and chickens and a kitchen and electricity and hot running water an a kitchen table and silverware and furniture and wall decorations and my bed!!!! Whew! But, even with all that change…nothing seemed new. Except the color of the kitchen, and the fact that I knew what we were having for dinner before it was even being prepared.

Nothing seemed new to me but I ate with my hands. All I talked about was Senegal, because that’s all that was on my mind. I expected to be paying so much attention to the simple pleasures I’d been missing for the past 4 months and hearing about everything that went on at home while I was gone, but it was like I was still in Senegal! Nothing was new because I hadn’t changed my mindset.

I spent two weeks at home: cooking, visiting with family, seeing friends and people I know from town—basically consuming 14 days that seemed like 2. Obviously it was wonderful to see everyone and finally spend time with these people I missed so much for the last 4 months…it just surprised me how normal it felt.

On May 31 I left again, this time to Hanover, NH to start my internship at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical center, in the Arts program. I moved into the house where I’ll be living for the summer, which is very quiet and quite lonely at this point because it’s finals week and everyone is either studying or out in the wilderness trying to get away from studying. I started my job that Monday, June 1st, and so far I LOVE it!!! I’ve been mostly doing odd jobs for now until I start shadowing the artist in residence, which should be sometime soon…next week or the week after maybe? I’ve been filing/organizing, doing lots of typing (labels for artwork, artists’ biographies, price lists, etc.), helping artists transport/hang/take down their work, photographing/documenting all the artwork in the hospital, copying lots of papers and distributing them all around to the information desks…basically office-type jobs for now. But that’s what I’m good at, and I love organizing things, and my advisor is great, so I’m very happy with my job!!! I ride the free bus there and back, I work 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, and am cooking lots of meals in a…well, I won’t say a nice kitchen, but it has a counter, a stove and running water so I can’t complain. And no cockroaches! That’s one Senegalese thing I don’t miss.

Anyway, as of now, even after looking through all my pictures and reading through my journals, I still have a really hard time comprehending that I ever actually went anywhere. There are some points I’ve thought about a bit, so I’ll try to explain those:

-Walking through the hospital the other day, I realized that I’ve gone through a huge and kind of disturbing change of environment: from a poverty-stricken country obviously in need of medical care to a sterile, what now seems like over-privileged, hospital. This point has many sub-points, most having to do with money, different views of the word “necessity,” etc...but what I notice most is the disposition of the ill people (or, I guess, how I perceive their disposition). In the hospital, although the staff and atmosphere are inviting and friendly, there is an eerie ambiance…people waiting for their ill loved ones are worried and fidgety, the ill are unhappy to be in this hospital setting and seem to just want to get on with their lives minus these tests and sterile white hallways…I’m really not sure how to go about explaining this but I think anyone who has spent time in a hospital would understand. In the villages probably a larger percent of the population (village vs. hospital) was sick…but that didn’t stop them from living their lives, from carrying water from the well, from visiting and kissing and hugging loved ones, from eating out of the communal bowl, or from raising a family, even if that meant that their children would carry on this sickness... I know that this wasn’t quite a case of “ignorance is bliss,” because my families made it very clear to me that they knew that medicine was out there and they knew people had access to it; I just wonder if it was the hopelessness of ever receiving care for their sicknesses that made them appreciate life and continue to live it, if it was a different cultural outlook on life…? The difference in atmosphere between these two communities is just baffling to me. It’s hard to think about because of the infinite number of possible explanations for all the differences…but yes I guess my point is that it’s been difficult adjusting to life at the hospital.

-My next point I’ve thought about a lot but was never really able to put into words. Then I got an email from my much more eloquent friend Avery who apparently was feeling exactly the same way, so I’m going to steal his explanation for this one (excerpt):
“…and here I was back in my own home, and for different reasons I felt like a celebrity all over again. Only this time, I didn't like the attention at all. I guess I was hoping my experience would just become a part of me right away and it would be invisible to others unless I decided to share it (I've noticed I'm hella selfish about Senegal because no one is as fun to talk to about Senegal as the people I was in Senegal with and thus I don't even want to bother with most). Luckily I've found the more people I run into the fewer seem to know where I've been and I love the power of throwing it in as a fun fact at random points in discussion just to see the reaction I get!”
And the next part is a story by Avery; I’ve had many situations like this but not quite so funny, so I’m being lazy and using his:
“My favorite so far has to be that of my Dental Hygienist!! You know how they always talk to you when clearly you are incapable of responding with more than a handful of words before they jab you with metal tools and spray water off your front teeth all over your face and then blow air in your mouth as if its going to help the situation. Then they suck out your drool excessively until you feel like your choking on your tongue because it’s dried up only to ask you another question you can't answer. Well this time was different! She asked all the same questions, but as soon as I mentioned Senegal, she couldn't stop asking questions. She was so interested in my experience and project and excursions...etc that she kept stopping to let me respond and tell her more…”

With this thought in mind, it’s really neat being at Dartmouth where the majority of people study abroad; it’s not that amazing to them that I went to Africa or that I studied abroad at all, so I feel much less of that uncomfortable celebrity-esque sentiment. People don’t give me that vague, unanswerable question: “How was Senegal?” What can I say to that?? My most concise and accurate answer I’ve come up with so far is: “It was any adjective that you can possibly think of.”

Ahhhh anyway there are SO many other things I’ve been thinking about (materialism is a biggie) but I have trouble putting things into words, if you haven’t noticed.

Oh but before I put an end to this I would like to share a little story. The other day I was on Facebook and noticed one of my friends’ statuses was in Wolof, and it said something like “I miss Senegal.” I didn’t find this weird at all until I noticed it wasn’t a friend from my trip; it turned out to be a girl who was apparently there the whole time I was but with a different study abroad program, in the same city, who lived in the same town as me in a different homestay, and who I probably saw walking down the street and didn’t recognize because it just would have been too bizarre to see someone I knew from VERMONT, USA in SENEGAL. Right?! It was her first night home and it was so interesting to talk to her about her experience, to see what she noticed, what she hated and loved and missed…maybe that’s why I’m not that willing to go into ALL my thoughts here, because I just finished going through all of them with her!
Anyway.
Overall:
I am not sad to have left Senegal.
My time in Senegal now seems like a dream, and though I read at points in my journal how slow time seemed to be going or how difficult it was, it now seems like a whir of happiness that passed by, a little tributary off of my real life.
I feel uncomfortable judging the Senegalese culture after living there for only 3.5 months and not even fluently speaking ANY language there. But I can’t help but compare our cultures and tend to prefer most aspects of my own.
I miss a lot of things about Senegal. A LOT of things.
But I’m glad to be home.

I don’t want to overload the contemplative tone of this blog, so I think I’ll stop here. But this means maybe I will update again someday with new thoughts!

Until then…

Ba Beneen. Inchallah.

-Emily