"Is it bright where you are,
Have the people changed,
Does it make you happy you're so strange"
Even though there are volunteers who don't happen to be Smashing Pumpkins devotees, those lyrics have a certain poignancy as you head into the final stretch of your service that we all feel to a certain extent. We're strangers in a village for two years, leaving everything we knew behind and joining a new community of host country nationals, volunteers, expats, the whole shebang. And you realize that you are definitely not the same person that you were when you packed up your two 50lb bags and set off into the unknown two years ago.
After about 10 months without rainfall, the worst part of hot season is over and rainy season has finally returned to Kolda and the land of endless summer - thank god. I can finally put my buckets out at night and wake up in the morning to miraculously full buckets of water. I can stop going to the well 4 times a day just to water my tree nursery.
With the advent of the rains, work has accelerated at a drastic pace as my village scrambles to wrap up everything that needs to be done before the rains become too frequent and steady. And of course, the moderate amount of rain that we've already had means that all of the projects that have to be established during the rainy season have to be started at the same time. Immediately. And as I find myself approaching the last few months of my service in village, the reality of how much I still wish that I could do at my site is hitting me full force while the time is rapidly slipping away. It's ironic, you start your service with the idea that you have all of this time stretching out in front of you - two years seems like such a long time when you're on the front end of things. And then you suddenly turn around and it's almost over. Unless you're me, in which case you decide that two years isn't nearly long enough. So although I only have four months left at my village, I've decided to extend my Peace Corps service in the city of Kolda for an extra year as the regional volunteer leader, which is a job that I'm ridiculously excited about starting.
Once my time is up in village at the end of the rainy season (October), I should be moving to Kolda and starting my new position, which is a combination of volunteer support, site development, and networking between local NGOs and Peace Corps volunteers in the Kolda region. It's going to be a very different situation and work environment than what I've been used to for the last two years. But as I'm wrapping things up in my village, the garden is finally coming together, the well project is almost completed, the kids have finally stopped calling me "toubako," and my host family is getting nostalgic. And as I look back over what I've done so far and what I'll finish up before I move on, the main focus of what I've been doing as the first volunteer in my village is to prepare enough projects and lay the groundwork for my replacement to come in and have an easier time of it than I did. By now, my village is pretty well used to having an American living and working with them - and once my replacement arrives, my village will have learned how to speak to someone who has no idea what they're saying in Pulaar and can help them learn in a much more constructive fashion without getting frustrated with the volunteer. They've already gotten their frustration out with me and have realized that I eventually was able to figure it all out and become relatively intelligible. And all of the meetings and networking and tea drinking and projects that I've done are going to pay off with whoever the new guy/gal is - they can start working pretty much immediately and expand on the things that I've already done/started, which will be a huge help in terms of not feeling like you're not doing anything early on, and will enable them to come up with some really interesting projects and trainings for the village.
So no, everything that I wanted to do will not be done before I leave village. But the foundation will be there for the next volunteer. And the best part of it all is that I can keep coming back to haunt them when I come back to visit the village :) That's one of the most interesting aspects of this extension - I'll be able to do what very few volunteers have an opportunity of doing, which is to go back and see what happens in the village once you're no longer the volunteer there. Did your projects hang together? Did they pick up and continue any of the things that you were obsessing about during your service? It's a crazy concept, but life in your village continues after you leave, and I'm excited to see what that looks like. This is going to be so much fun...
Have the people changed,
Does it make you happy you're so strange"
Even though there are volunteers who don't happen to be Smashing Pumpkins devotees, those lyrics have a certain poignancy as you head into the final stretch of your service that we all feel to a certain extent. We're strangers in a village for two years, leaving everything we knew behind and joining a new community of host country nationals, volunteers, expats, the whole shebang. And you realize that you are definitely not the same person that you were when you packed up your two 50lb bags and set off into the unknown two years ago.
After about 10 months without rainfall, the worst part of hot season is over and rainy season has finally returned to Kolda and the land of endless summer - thank god. I can finally put my buckets out at night and wake up in the morning to miraculously full buckets of water. I can stop going to the well 4 times a day just to water my tree nursery.
With the advent of the rains, work has accelerated at a drastic pace as my village scrambles to wrap up everything that needs to be done before the rains become too frequent and steady. And of course, the moderate amount of rain that we've already had means that all of the projects that have to be established during the rainy season have to be started at the same time. Immediately. And as I find myself approaching the last few months of my service in village, the reality of how much I still wish that I could do at my site is hitting me full force while the time is rapidly slipping away. It's ironic, you start your service with the idea that you have all of this time stretching out in front of you - two years seems like such a long time when you're on the front end of things. And then you suddenly turn around and it's almost over. Unless you're me, in which case you decide that two years isn't nearly long enough. So although I only have four months left at my village, I've decided to extend my Peace Corps service in the city of Kolda for an extra year as the regional volunteer leader, which is a job that I'm ridiculously excited about starting.
Once my time is up in village at the end of the rainy season (October), I should be moving to Kolda and starting my new position, which is a combination of volunteer support, site development, and networking between local NGOs and Peace Corps volunteers in the Kolda region. It's going to be a very different situation and work environment than what I've been used to for the last two years. But as I'm wrapping things up in my village, the garden is finally coming together, the well project is almost completed, the kids have finally stopped calling me "toubako," and my host family is getting nostalgic. And as I look back over what I've done so far and what I'll finish up before I move on, the main focus of what I've been doing as the first volunteer in my village is to prepare enough projects and lay the groundwork for my replacement to come in and have an easier time of it than I did. By now, my village is pretty well used to having an American living and working with them - and once my replacement arrives, my village will have learned how to speak to someone who has no idea what they're saying in Pulaar and can help them learn in a much more constructive fashion without getting frustrated with the volunteer. They've already gotten their frustration out with me and have realized that I eventually was able to figure it all out and become relatively intelligible. And all of the meetings and networking and tea drinking and projects that I've done are going to pay off with whoever the new guy/gal is - they can start working pretty much immediately and expand on the things that I've already done/started, which will be a huge help in terms of not feeling like you're not doing anything early on, and will enable them to come up with some really interesting projects and trainings for the village.
So no, everything that I wanted to do will not be done before I leave village. But the foundation will be there for the next volunteer. And the best part of it all is that I can keep coming back to haunt them when I come back to visit the village :) That's one of the most interesting aspects of this extension - I'll be able to do what very few volunteers have an opportunity of doing, which is to go back and see what happens in the village once you're no longer the volunteer there. Did your projects hang together? Did they pick up and continue any of the things that you were obsessing about during your service? It's a crazy concept, but life in your village continues after you leave, and I'm excited to see what that looks like. This is going to be so much fun...
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