I've noticed that your service gets much busier as it goes on for the obvious reasons that your language gets better, you gain confidence and feel more integrated. And as all overachievers know, that also makes time go by faster. Here I find myself looking at the new SED stage getting to country, and suddenly I am the old, experienced volunteer blabbing away in Wolof and bargaining for taxis like a pro. I'm not quite halfway through my service, but the stage a year ahead of us just attended COS conference and will begin to trickle out of the country next month, and I will be faced with the prospect of saying goodbye to many people I have formed good relationships with over the past 10 months or so.
But that's life, right? Before I know it I'll be the one leaving people behind and blah blah blah life goes on.
On a less depressing note, I actually am really anxious to get back to village all of a sudden. Despite the fact that many of my Senegalese friends left for a few months for school vacation (they are ironically all teachers) I am excited to bareroot bed a couple of citrus seeds I managed to obtain in Thies, meaning that I will put them in a shallow pepiniere and transfer them to tree sacs once they germinate. I also have the next few months to spend writing a grant for school gardens for this coming year. The Peace Corps decided that it had to conform with the rest of the American government by making grant applications 1300 pages long and involve questions involving everything from why your proposed project will be sustainable to your mother's shoe size.
Meanwhile, I have to give a quick an unrelated shout-out to something that has improved my quality of life over the past month or two: podcasts. It's amazing what a good episode of NPR's Fresh Air or This American Life can do for one's general sense of well-being and morale sometimes. At least my sept-place rides are much faster these days.
So that concludes my rambling for today. Give America a hearty Asalamalekum for me.
~E
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