With my time left in Senegal ticking steadily away, I’ve been constantly contemplating everything I’ve learned here, trying to organize it in my brain. It never ceases to amaze me just how much these past six months have taught me about Senegalese culture and life. On a grander scale, I’ve been learning about how to integrate yourself into any other culture different from your own. The lessons and experiences of my total cross-cultural immersion have been pulsating in my mind all the time.

For quite a while now, I’ve known I want to live and work in a developing country, working with women and/or youth – probably in Africa and probably with a developmental NGO. I knew all along that this GCY bridge year will have been helpful when that dream becomes a reality, but after meeting some American NGO folks, I fully appreciate that the experience is absolutely invaluable.

My apprenticeship is not just with a preschool – it’s with an entire “community center” of sorts, who run the preschool, health initiatives and other things geared towards childhood development. The whole thing is funded by a foreign NGO. A little over a month ago, some Americans from this NGO stopped by my apprenticeship to check out the preschool, among other things. The Senegalese man who runs the center had forewarned me and asked me to translate – being sure to tell the Americans all the good things I am doing at the preschool, how wonderful the teachers are, etc. The way he explained it, if they got a good impression, they would give him more money for the center. I slightly uncomfortably agreed to do what I could.

The day arrived and in they came, surrounded by every single personnel member from the center, two translators from Dakar, and a cameraman with a mic. Every Senegalese person was in their element, speaking rapidly and trying their darndest to be charming and be heard. I really did not want to enter that throng, so I kept trying to keep the kids’ focus on their workbooks, not the loud, excitable horde that had stampeded into their formerly peaceful classroom.

The ones whom I gathered were the education experts had asked me a few questions about the curriculum, etc., and discussed my answers between themselves. They didn’t seem too impressed, one of them saying something along the lines of: “There are other schools in Africa with more students and more learning.” Standing there listening to them, I again found myself in a situation where I resented the need to bite my tongue, only this time I wasn’t even talking to Senegalese people. The Americans were gone in less than 10 minutes.

That whole encounter left a bad taste in my mouth and I went home immediately after they left to think about it. A very friendly email I later got from the “health specialist,” with a draft of his field report attached, gave rise to two emotions: 1) it made me very uncomfortable with the idea of writing this post, and 2) it made me want to write the post even more because I found some discrepancies within the report. It was just so obvious to me that they could have avoided those by hanging around a little longer, actually visiting for more than 10 minutes, or maybe even putting someone in the field instead of trying to run things from afar. I understand that they have Senegalese people working with them, and I am 100% for putting local people on local projects, but this project just isn’t working in the best way. Read more >

Since I basically live on the edge of Sebikotane, opposite from Gaya, Hilary, and the places where our activities are, I walk about two or three miles every day to get around. I could take a ndiaga-ndiaye for about 15 cents, as my Senegalese family and friends encourage me to do, but I prefer to walk for two reasons. First of all, it keeps my lower body, which has been expanding alarmingly due to Senegalese food and the enthusiastic women who feed me, in check. Secondly – and more importantly, I suppose – the walk becomes sort of a social event. Ever since my last post, I’ve started being a lot more insistent in doing what I want to get done, and thus have met many new people and become much more familiar with those I already knew.

So now, on my daily walks, I have to factor in a few extra minutes to account for all the stopping. I stop to shake hands with, chat with, and receive meal invitations from teachers, co-workers, extended family members, and, because this is Senegal, many other “family members.” I am not excluded from these broad familial definitions – the children at the preschool call the teachers “Tata,” which means “auntie.” It never fails to make me smile to hear all these little voices shouting “Tata Victoria!” and waving frenetically when I pass by on the road. Most enjoyable for me are all the new friendships I’m building thanks to the high school English club that Gaya and I have started. I have never before realized how essential it is to my happiness and well-being to have friends my age, and my appreciation for my friends, both back home and here, has deepened greatly. Read more >

Friday the 15th marked the halfway point of our stay in Senegal. I’ve been keeping close track of the days, and feeling the halfway mark looming upon me was, frankly, kind of depressing. A month ago, I had written a proposal detailing all the activities I wanted to initiate at the preschool. The director approved it the day I submitted it, and said he would explain it to the preschool teacher. After a week, I tried to organize a meeting between the three of us. While I waited for that meeting to take place, I continued what I’d been doing at the school – helping the kids color, opening snacks, handing out materials, and drawing the curricula on the boards. A month passed while I waited, and I decided to just explain it to the teacher myself on Wednesday. I launched into a long, painful speech in my stunted French, and she listened and nodded. Then she brought me a stack of 50 notebooks and told me to copy the same picture into all of them (I’ve been designated official artist, because they somehow think my atrocious drawing skills are fabulous) so that the kids in my group could color the next day. She had obviously missed my entire point – that coloring every day was getting them nowhere, that I was tired of being forced to draw pictures and make endless paper chains, that I was not accomplishing anything at this apprenticeship. As I sat there, drowning in a sea of empty, waiting notebooks, I could feel a scream rising rapidly inside my throat. I was perilously close to either letting it out or bursting into an absolute torrent of tears.

That was and will undoubtedly be my lowest point throughout this bridge year. That Saturday, there had been an extremely uncomfortable situation with my host family. Sunday, I got the news that my aunt had just succumbed to her fight with pancreatic cancer. I took some time off work to cry and calm myself down and when I returned, I was still pretty high-strung. When that conversation happened, the frustration and feeling of helplessness that had been building up over the past week completely took over. Luckily, I refrained from exploding, knowing that would distress the teachers to no end, and that moment became a pivotal one for me.

I truly love GCY. I think the program is absolutely phenomenal and plan on being one of the loudest, most enthusiastic voices promoting the GCY experience when I return to the States. Read more >

For our first monthly meeting in Dakar, the Fellows celebrated a late Thanksgiving at Rachel’s house. I was averse to having a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner, but tried not to dampen everyone else’s holiday spirits. It just struck me as rather America-centric to feel the need to celebrate traditional holidays while abroad, especially while in an immersion program, and especially when the holiday is one as distinctively American as Thanksgiving. (Yes, I am aware that Canadians also celebrate Thanksgiving, but it’s really not quite the same.) Thanksgiving admittedly doesn’t hold much importance with me anyways. First of all, there are far too many questions about the cruelty of the colonizing Europeans and the resulting plight of the natives for me to give thanks for this national holiday. Secondly, Thanksgiving isn’t that much fun for me as a vegan. So right off the bat, my desire to celebrate Thanksgiving was probably less than that of the other Fellows.

However, once all the traditional fare was prepared (we actually had chicken and one symbolic turkey leg), my idealistic-youthful-activist cynicism melted away like butter in mashed potatoes. Read more >

Before I left Boston, my mother warned me not to argue with people if I disagreed with their cultural beliefs. It’s better to bite my tongue, she said, to avoid creating problems for myself. Before in-country arrival, GCY gave us instructions to steer clear of discussing controversial topics with our host families and newfound friends. I understand this. I may be a girl of strong convictions, but I would like to think that when GCY chose me, they saw some semblance of cultural sensitivity. I know how to pick my battles, and I know that as a Founding Fellow, I shouldn’t really pick any at all.

Nevertheless, keeping my opinions to myself is becoming difficult, especially with my host father constantly telling me “we’re your family now, I’m your father now, you should behave as if this were your house in America!” Well, if my real dad and I were sitting on the couch, watching TV, and he loudly announced “I’m thirsty!” I would probably say something along the lines of “oh.” I would not take that as a cue to run to the kitchen, pour him a glass of water, hand it to him while dropping a curtsy, stand there waiting for him to finish, and take the glass back to the kitchen. I have a lot of respect my father, and as a normally nice person, I would gladly get him a drink if he asked for one. But saying “I’m thirsty” is not akin to asking for a drink, especially not asking with a please. Read more >