We made it! PC Senegal August '09 Stage
On Sunday I headed to Dakar from site and hung out at the regional house until it was time to check into our hotel. The main purpose of the COS Conference is to bring together everyone from our original Fall '09 Peace Corps group one last time in order to sift through the piles of paperwork and information that is necessary to wrap up two years of service. I must admit, the Peace Corps did a great job of spoiling us by putting us up in a swanky hotel and stuffing us full of unnecessary amounts of food. I brought running shoes and pretended I was going to use them (they never made it out of the backpack). We spent the first night relaxing poolside and catching up with one another; it was somewhat surreal seeing everyone in the same place at an official Peace Corps function since those occasions rarely occur. Out of our original starting group of 55, there were 45 volunteers who made it all the way to COS Conference. Several volunteers "early terminated" and left Senegal within the last two years, a couple were medically separated due to various medical issues, and several had already finished two years of service by the time COS rolled around because they were transfered here after the Peace Corps Mauritania program shut down. Senegal actually has one of the lowest "early termination" rates of any Peace Corps program worldwide, so we were proud to be 45 strong at the end.
Monday was the first day of the actual conference and we spent the majority of the time reviewing our Peace Corps experience, discussing how our various acquired skills can be applied to future careers, and going over all sorts of administrative procedures to ensure we can actually get on a plane and leave the country. Since my plane ticket is already booked I found those parts particularly intriguing. On Monday evening a group of us enjoyed some brewskies at a surfer bar, went out to dinner and then out to the bars. I was basically falling asleep in my beer. It's shocking how draining it can be to emotionally dissect two years of one's life. Capsulizing that amount of a time is simply impossible. Or at least it will be for me until I'm back in the United States and it's sunk in that it's all really over.
On Tuesday morning we spent several hours speaking with a few guest speakers from USAID, the United Nations, and other NGOs in Dakar. Later in the afternoon the entire group headed to the American Club for a reception and another Q&A session with public sector employees from various international agencies. The speakers not only provided us with insight into the world of overseas development work after Peace Corps, they continually reminded us not to downplay our experience as Peace Corps volunteers. I think it's easy to forget that there are very few other organizations out there in which people are working on such a grass roots, local level; as Peace Corps volunteers we become closer to our families and communities and more intertwined with local culture than any other NGO could dream to be. While it's true that this proximity to Senegalese people and culture can also cause a lot of the headaches that accompany Peace Corps life, it was nice to be reminded that yeah, I am a badass. Thank you very much.
Admittedly, my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer has changed my mind about pursuing any sort of international development work. I have "back to America" blinders on right now so listening to the development workers speak about either returning to Senegal after service or choosing to move here for their jobs made me think: you are all crazy. But I suppose a lot of that is the two years of fatigue and homesickness talking. I mean after all, I just did two years of "crazy." I often wonder where along the way my desire to work abroad officially went missing. Maybe it's still there buried somewhere and will reveal itself again someday, and perhaps I will never think twice about staying put in America.
Most of Wednesday was spent wrapping up and trying to bring some sense of closure to our service. Our Country Director invited the entire group over to his house for dinner as a thank you and to give us one last night together. We took some of our last group pictures and I showed a slideshow I had put together of everyone over the course of the last two years. It was a very strange feeling to look around the room and know I might never see some of these people again. Even though I'm not extremely close to everyone from my stage and all of us had verydifferent experiences here, they represent a tiny portion of the world population who actually gets my Peace Corps experience. We all boarded that plane together just under two years ago and soon we'll all be headed back to start all sorts of other adventures. There are a few brave volunteers who are choosing to extend their service by 6 months or even a year; I just smile and nod at them when they tell me why and then picture myself eating a Chipotle burrito. While I am itching to leave and counting down the days, the whole thing is really, really sad.
I think it will take me quite a while to really sort through my feelings about leaving and saying goodbye to these people, this place, and this life. I imagined myself at COS Conference as a blubbering idiot, crying a lot, struggling with the words I wanted to say to each person I'd be saying goodbye to. I cry at everything. Really. But those feelings never came and I found myself in complete denial of what was happening and I ended up simply enjoying the time with my fellow comrades. The nostalgia and sappiness will definitely kick in when I get in a car to leave Pout and my family, and even more so when I'm en route to the airport. But I bet I'll find myself really, truly taking it all after I've been back in the States for quite a while. It will just take time I guess.
Small Enterprise Development (SED)
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