So I am sitting in my room in Mbam on the eve of my last day here. I can't really decide how to feel, but I am happy with the way things have turned out. It's strange to think that it's already December! Now is the time when I really want to get back to contact with the outside world (seriously- cell phone reception has been awful, the power's been off, and I have only been on the internet once in six weeks), but I also want to put Mbam in my pocket and carry it away with me. The people in my life here are wonderful and I can tell that while I am as confused as ever about the big questions lurking behind development, this experience is going to help me come a little bit closer to some answers. It was definitely a worthwhile life experience to pack up and move to the Senegalese countryside. I can't really account for my six weeks with any real accuracy; all the days blur together. But I do know that my activities have been varied and have offered me a sense of what goes on here. My computer is almost dead and I don't really have much time to write, but I wanted to say a little bit about how I am feeling. This day feels sort of important. It marks the end of this internship and really, the end of the program. We have a week left in Dakar, but I have no doubt that will fly by (especially because my 21st birthday is coming up next Wednesday! I can't believe it's already December...) and then I will be off on another adventure in France until the holidays. Time is a funny thing when days pass at the tempo of a West African village, but months disappear in what feels like seconds. I was interrogated by a very drunk Senegalese man this evening in broken French/Wolof/English about what I had learned here. I felt as though I couldn't answer because to tell you the truth I have been too wrapped up in the experience to sit back and reflect on it in any genuine fashion. This may seem bizarre given that without outside distractions I have spent a huge amount of time thinking and writing in the past six weeks, but that's mostly been personal and I can tell it's going to take me a long while afterwards to figure out exactly what this semester has meant. I realize now it was a lot braver than I realized to come and do this internship business. I don't expect anyone to praise me or pretend I did anything good for the world; I know that this trip was about me and my education. But I am still happy that I managed to laugh my way through the experience rather than having a nervous breakdown when things got crazy (and they did, occasionally, get a little crazy) It's funny to think that until I met David (the Peace Corps volunteer in Mbam) on Tuesday, I hadn't spoken English in over a month. I guess the Thursday before Emma came and we spoke some English, but that too was in the fifth week of my stay. I will be curious to go home and find out if there are things about me that have changed- besides my skin tone and hair color- that I haven't yet noticed. I am so up in the air on so many questions right now, I hope I can get my head on straight before heading home. Even if I can't, I am not too upset because I have made a really important decision- my first breakfast back in the states will be at the Original Pancake House on December 23rd. Oh the important things in life!
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