What's new?

As anticipated, getting back to my life in SPB was a fairly easy process, not too much has changed. The hardest part was the logistics of getting there, but even that managed to work out great – three long flights + two long layovers + an all day bus ride = Santa Rosa to Saré Pathé, door to door in approximately 78 hours… not too shabby. Tanko was the first to greet me as I rolled into my compound, but news of my return spread quickly and I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few weeks answering the same series of questions: How are the people of America? How is your mother? And your father? And your siblings? How is your leg? Are you better? May God heal you quickly. Amen!

I'm back to sleeping under the stars, saying “heera” fifty times a day and eating lots of leaf sauce! I’ve returned to SPB as I first saw it – hot, dry, full of cows and mangoes and bamboo home improvement projects. This part of the year there is not much fieldwork to be done so everyone is getting ready for the rains. In my compound this means new fences, new roofs and even new huts! My bush path is back to what it looked like the first time I hiked down it and my backyard is as void of plant life as it was when I first installed (RIP Banana). But despite these superficial reminders of what life was like for me a year ago, I am feeling a distinctive, fresh village vibe these days. A new chapter begins!

Mamadou and Moustapha building a new hut out of bamboo. It will later get a layer of mud (from the dirt displaced by our new latrine!).

My latrine project is well underway (click here for more details!). I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the level of enthusiasm and urgency with which people are approaching this project and how quickly the work is progressing already. My Care Group is also up and running again, with a couple of solid alternates joining the rotation. This week they have been teaching the village how to make Oral Rehydration Solution and are so wonderfully engaged in the task! I’m hoping to expand these lessons to surrounding villages in the coming months. All in all, I’m unusually busy at site and I love it. I no longer get nervous about calling meetings, I know how to get the help I want when I want it, I know how to ask more of the right questions and I definitely know more of the right answers. My work counterpart had a baby while I was away (I didn’t even know she was pregnant when I left!) and my community counterpart left town, which means I’m a little more on my own these days, which is not a bad thing. When I spoke to Laye on the phone the other day I tried to explain that he doesn’t need to come back to Saré Pathé on my account. As far as I’m concerned he has done his job as my community counterpart – he gave me my introduction – and while I consider him a pal and would enjoy seeing him again soon I’m now at a point where I feel able to find my own work partners and friends in village. It took leaving and coming back to realize just how comfortable I have gotten at site.

Mamadou digging a new latrine in our compound

The other day, while making the greeting rounds I was in a compound that I don’t often visit and asked the name of a baby squirming in the lap of the woman I was greeting. “This is Lamine! You don’t recognize him?!” It was the baby who was born on my first day in village and named for my namesake’s husband who died the same day. He’ll be a year old in a couple weeks. My Peace Corps service measured in terms of human life. Two years is really not so long at all.