SCORE!

Current Score:
Senegal: 374 Me: 1
To keep in the spirit of the national sport of Senegal, soccer, I confess that there are moments of every day in which I feel like my Peace Corps experience is a bit of a shut-out; like I am a lone opponent against the entire force of the Senegalese National Team. Don’t get me wrong, I am so glad to be here. I am learning lots and getting excited about the work I will soon begin. But everything is difficult and everything takes a considerable amount of effort. It is easy, on a bad day, to feel defeated.

But last week I launched a ball from midfield and sank it into the top right corner of the GOAL. Score one for me. For more than a month I have wanted a bookshelf for my hut – nothing fancy, just a place to put things, off the floor. The second week in my village I had asked the local “handy man” in my village to make one for me; a task I thought reasonable. Upon completion, I was not impressed, kindly did not accept the product and continued wanting a shelf. I was even willing (and against all faith from my villagers) even able to build it for myself. But just finding the necessary materials for such a project is an undertaking. So until this point I had admitted defeat.

Then last week, I woke up at about 1am (you should know I sleep outside my hut in my backyard) and just knew a storm was about to hit. You could just feel it. I literally shot up, grabbed my pillow, sheet and alarm clock in one fell swoop and ran into my hut. I barely cleared the door when the rains and winds blew through like a freight train. It was an amazing display of nature – and not being used to the nature here yet, it scared the living daylights out of me. Needless to say, I was unable to fall asleep for the next three hours.

So I read for awhile. And then I cleaned for awhile. And then I realized that I REALLY wanted that bookshelf. So with the cardboard box which I used to transport my books and binders to Thiewal Lao, some plastic rope and duct tape (there really are 1000 uses for duct tape), I fashioned a hanging bookshelf. It is not pretty. It may not last more than a few weeks. But it is a place to put things. And I made it, by candlelight, in a fit of anxiety at 2am during my first encounter with Senegal nature, and I think it is pretty freaking amazing!

And so it is the small things that make this long, hard, really incredible experience possible. It is the hanging bookshelves in life that make all the difference at 2am when nothing else can calm your nerves. And it is the people in your life who whole-heartedly appreciate the inner beauty of your totally horrendous creation that remind you that two years is only two years when you’ve got some place to put your things.