Guilt and Peace Corps

Peace Corps isn't easy.  No one ever said it was nor did I have the illusion that it would be.  But what I didn't expect was this.  Aside from feeling unproductive 80% of the time I also get waves of guilt (not the Jewish kind), boredom, frustration, unhappiness and general dissatisfaction.  The good news is that I know that this all will pass.  Things will get better, everyone says so, and I believe them, if I didn't, I wouldn't be here anymore.  Things don't just get better with the snap of my fingers though, it takes time, dedication, and perseverance.  Staying in village for me has been key.  Getting through the hard days is always rewarded with good days and great moments.

Christmas was hard, and not because I wanted to celebrate Christmas, nor was I upset that family and friends back home were, but it was that I knew that all my family and friends were getting together; something that I always enjoyed during college was getting together and seeing people who often I would see only once or twice a year.  It wasn't even that I necessarily wanted to be there instead of here, but the simple fact that it was happening, even when I was here, in Botou, was difficult to say the least.  But I did come out on the other side, and as I said there are always great moments.  Christmas afternoon my host siblings said that we were going to go and do something.  It came across to me as some sort of adventure and of course I said yes.  It turned out that we went to pick little shriveled fruits off my least favorite tree in Senegal.  A tree that during CBT would constantly attack Jordan and me at our garden, a tree that has the most painful spines, but a tree nonetheless that provides a strange, and occasionally satisfying taste of sweet and sour.  Spending time with my host siblings, whether it be pulling water from the well like a donkey and watering the garden, or picking these bizarre fruits are the great moments that I rely on to keep me sane and happy at site.  My siblings, the three girls in particular, are sometimes the siblings that I never had growing up as a kid.  I give them a hard time when they do silly or stupid things, I roll my eyes with them behind the back of their mother and watch them giggle, and I help them with their French homework.

The other frustration of being at site is feeling guilty.  I feel guilty when I read, I feel guilty when I cook food in my hut to supplement my diet of rice, I feel guilty when I use a pen that works much better than the pens my host siblings use for school, and generally there isn't much I can do about any of these guilt ridden daily happenings.  I still read in my hut because it gives me a piece of mind.  Reading is now, and always has been my sanctuary, my escape from reality, even if for a little bit.  While I could (and sometimes do) read outside my hut, I am then surrounded by a group of kids from the village who can't read or participate in what I'm doing, so begin to chatter in Bambara. I also feel guilty about cooking beans in my hut.  While the food at site is particularly good for Senegalese food, it isn't varied.  Most lunches are either peanut sauce or fish and rice and dinners are corn couscous with a bean sauce, often with moringa, but usually with few actual beans themselves.  Protein is obviously lacking in their diets so I have taken to cooking myself a cup of beans every few days to supplement.  Sometimes to the point that I'm not as hungry for lunch, and this my host mother, in particular, notices.  It's frustrating because I don't love the food in Senegal, but I do eat it and sometimes I genuinely like the food, but I do feel the need to eat some beans now and again.  Maybe it's the language barrier right now that doesn't quite allow me to express what I'm feeling or thinking, but I try the best I can to explain and hope that either the message gets across and they get used to it, or we can laugh and joke about it whenever it becomes an issue.

The point of frustration about the lack of productivity is the one thing I know will get better in the months to come, guaranteed.  Right now I have my garden seeded, I started a nursery with my host mom and dad under the water chateau in my uncle's garden, and now that the harvesting of peanuts is basically finished, people should be around more so that I can spend time in other compounds.  But sometimes I think about whether my presence in village really means something to the villagers other than the fact that they have an American living in their village.  I know that at times it truly does, that they enjoy talking to me and learning about American culture and ideas, but at times I feel like I'm enduring many more daily struggles and personally getting a lot more out of my time at site then they are.  Part of that may be because I can't see, and may not see, the effects of my work at site.