Balancing in the middle

It’s been 16 months since I’ve been in Guinea and 14 months since I’ve been living and working in my village. I’ve had a busy couple of months since hitting the year mark. I had a whirlwind adventure to Senegal where I made a presentation on food security in Guinea at the PC Senegal All Volunteer in Thies and then headed to Dakar for the annual WAIST softball tournament. PC Guinea represented our country well with our team, The Runs. We all wore different shades of brown…I’ll let that one sink in so you can grasp the cleverness. We’re pretty great at double entendres.
The entire Senegal trip was a blast. I got to re-explore Thies and explore Dakar for essentially the first time. Dakar is the cosmopolitan capital of West Africa and we Guinean volunteers were blown away by the amenities and level of development. Driving through the Almadies neighborhood, you think you’re in a resort city in Spain. Unreal. We took full advantage—lots of eating and shopping. I also had the amazingly wonderful chance to reunite with Mbouille and his family in Thies and Babacar and his family in Dakar. It was such a treat to see everyone and to meet the youngest kids in each family who have been born since I was there last in 2007. Mbouille and Babacar were my teachers during my summer program in Senegal but quickly also became my friends and my surrogate Senegalese Dads, looking out for me and opening up their homes to me. I hope to travel back to Senegal to spend more time with them both!
The whirlwind continued as I flew out of Dakar to meet up with my mom in Marrakesh, Morocco. We spent 12 days together exploring Marrakesh and taking side trips to the Atlas Mountains and to Essouira on the coast. I’ve never gone that long without seeing my mom so you can only imagine how over the moon I was for our reunion. We stayed at a beautiful little riad tucked in an alleyway in the medina (Riad Ghemza—look it up, highly recommended) and visited all the major sites of the city including the Souks, where I was repeatedly told I must be berber because I bargained so hard, and the Jemaa El Fna square. Again, I did a LOT of eating—olives, veggies couscous, chicken tajine, goat cheese…Our day trip to the Atlas Mountains included a camel ride through a valley followed by a hike around the villages surrounding Imlil. Our 2 day trip to the artsy coastal town of Essaouira was a welcome change of pace from the hectic Marrakesh, as we walked through the small medina and along the beach. Practically every dinner on our trip included a bottle of red wine and a lot of laughter. Suffice it to say, it was one of the best vacations I’ve ever had.
Since returning to site, I’ve started the tree nursery with the school environmental education club. Now that the grant money has come through, I plan to go to Labe to buy all the materials needed for our activities.
I recently spent a week in Mamou with the rest of my stage (the group I came to country with) for our Reconnect training where we exchanged technical information on what we’ve been doing at site and talked about tackling the second year of service. The training itself was useful, but I most enjoyed simply being all together again for the first time since last May. I’ve come to care for and depend on nearly everyone in my stage like a family—my PC family. We had a great time catching up, swapping stories and even getting some dancing in when we went to the bar down the road from the training center.
Beginning year two is a unique time to look back on what’s happened and prepare for what’s left. I feel accomplished on one hand, having made it this far, yet can’t help but feel daunted and somewhat burnt out when I think of the 10 months I have left to get through. I feel perched in the middle of two mountains. (Sorry if that’s trying to be too poetic.) From what I’ve heard from former volunteers and what I can gather from my project plans, the second year will pass by surprisingly more quickly than the first. However it happens, I’m so happy to have come this far and am ready to charge on, petit a petit.