A Split-Second Retrospect for the Sabaar Newsletter

In respect to our newest stage, I wanted to remind those of us over-the-hill that:

Before we became useful in our useless language,
Before we could Enable Macros and
Before we scratched our 1,000th Orange Card

WE TOO PARTICIPATED IN P.S.T.

I present a little retrospective:

Lets face it. Whether 2, 6, 12, 18 or 24 months ago, we all showed up to Peace Corps, clueless and in machine-washed clothes.

We were a group of jet-lagged, dewy-eyed co-eds, lopsided by so much camping-gear, we appeared that rather than beginning PST, we hade come to Theis to hunt the Blaire Witch. The 50 or so of us galumphed around the training center, exchanging one throwaway platitude after the next, “Did I hear you’re from Oregon!“ or “Can you believe how well Etiene speaks English.”

Several hours prior, leaned up against whirring glass, we watched the shivering heavens of the Atlantic. We exhaled the last of our American ingested air, swirling our index finger liberally through the condensation. Misty with emotion ourselves, we wrestled our reasons for joining Peace Corps. Replaying the old, indelible pre-service aphorism, “ I will walk away from this experience having gained more than I gave,” we intoxicated ourselves with the positive.

I will be able to read all the classics.
I will not be distracted by drink and drug. It’s a Muslim country.
I will perfect my French

The first few days at the center, we were all fresh off the set of some sitcom finale: drenched in the imagery of our final evenings and goodbyes. If initial impact had been too traumatic, many of us immediately iced the swelling on Skype. Some others, not so busy in heartache, were just swatting flies. A few, those of us who received the reading list, were sequestered into top-secret conference calls, where we whispered developmental sweet-nothings with each other:

“It‘s about bringing behavior change,”
“Shh, it‘s all in the implementation“
“No Chris. You just don’t get it. None of this will work if you don‘t scale up.”

For the majority of us, however, it was the newly-launched blog--not updated since take-off that had us most crippled with anxiety.

As for those next couple of weeks, our listening-skills would benefit greatly. Rather robust these days, our attention-spans still bear the stretch-marks of every shilly-shallied PST session. The mud hut, like Late Night television, was always calling its next guest. We would cheer and swoon as the next one took stage. Sometimes, we even briefly divinized that misshapen and scabby 2nd year volunteer, who, having returned from the front-line, never failed to regale us with drollery, misadventure and all of her cross-cultural whoopsie do’s.

A few weeks later, West Africa now gurgling in our stomachs, we were temporarily released from our foster-care. Animated and hot-blooded, we paraded to the catholic compound. Everyone took his or her turn, hoping to tell the next great village tale.

Retiring to our neon-bed linens, with the loose dopamine from our Prophylactics oozing in our skull, our dreams to save the world soon became rabid nightmares of murder and suicide. In the mornings, we would disentangle from our skuzzy, saggy mosquito-nets, spread blobs of jelly onto bread and we would listen, hazily, to the early morning echoes of LCF’s flirting.

On our second retreat to Theis, given that our most recent and uninterrupted fortnight of Senegalese role-playing had not left us dizzy enough, we were swiftly blindfolded and spun like dreidles. When we broke free of the bondage, we gazed down at our toes. In between cracks and fallen leaves, we contextualized, in cartographic terms, where we would begin our new life.

Never in our two years here, would we ever showcase, so fantastically, our need for improvement than Demyst. Depending what direction we left from Theis, some of us traversed through hilly, verdant jungles, others of us, hobbled along tawdry, windswept scrublands. Regardless, every forty kilometers or so, we would break at some nondescript juncture and some new non-African creature would emerge from the roadside thicket. Our anciene’s escorted us out of the Sports Utility Vehicles as if we were embedded journalists. We spent much of the week on a short and secure leash; occasionally our chaperone slackened it so we could perform one of our new cross-cultural tricks: how to prepare tea, dance the Mbalax or, for the very daring, how to properly place shoes down in between you and the person praying.

Once we returned from Peace Corps True Life, we quickly took to the beach for some of our own uncensored recreation. Undressing, splashing and capering, we absorbed the moonlight like werewolves; anticipating, in the evening’s heat, our own reincarnation. A few weeks later, as we swapped our street-clothes for stiff-wax, the process truly began.
We all took an oath to be Senegalese and stuffed ourselves with mini-hamburgers.