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| My neighborhood, you can see my hut in the background |
When you first get to Peace Corps, you measure your time in
weeks. “I can’t believe I have been here 3 weeks!”, “Today marks our 6th
week in country!”, etc. At some point you stop measuring in weeks, and begin to
measure in months and then you stop measuring. You are simply living your life.
You don’t count months when you are living at home, so why would it be any
different here. Time passes without you realizing it and before you know it,
you are back to counting in weeks. It is now, “Where did the time go, I just
have 7 weeks left”. The excitement for having made it another week is now
replaced with a sadness about how little time you have left. You can come back,
but it will never be the same. You can send facebook messages to your
colleagues, but will probably never again talk to your old lady neighbor who
only speaks Sousou and does not own a phone. You put on your rose colored glasses.
This only makes it harder. I find myself thinking bush taxis are not
over-crowded, slow, smelly death traps but a great way to see the countryside
and meet new friends. Who would want the sterility and choice of a modern
supermarket when the market is so colorful and full of fresh produce at
dirt-cheap prices. I think only about the adorable children who sing to me and
run into my arms on my walk into work and forget the sweat and fatigue of
walking 30 minutes in the hot Africa sun. And about the lady, who despite
having a satellite TV and 8 sheep, asks me for money for bread
every.single.day. If you only think if the good, leaving becomes impossible and
heart-wrenching. So I am attempting to live these last couple of weeks with a
Guinean pair of rose colored glasses. That is to say, one lens rosy and the
other knocked out by time and wear to a more realistic, lens-less frame. I
don’t want to stop seeing everything I adore about this country, but I also
need to keep my eye on why I am excited to get back to the states and on to the
next chapter of my life. And let’s be serious, Salématou, nobody likes riding in a bush taxi.
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