No Good, Very Bad Days

I would be lying if I said that these past few months have been 100% rainbows and ice cream. There have in fact been a few days where I think “what the fuck am I doing here?” The joy of PST is that in these moments of doubt, like-minded friends are never more than a sandy road away and facilitators are available to translate the cultural snafus and frustrations. It has become apparent that the real challenge of village living is not the bucket bathing, carbohydrate-only diet or occasional bouts of dysentery but the lack of said emotional support on the really bad days. Cell phones are a godsend, but 900 character texts can only be so comforting. Generally speaking, this hasn’t been an issue but when I hit the three week period in village I also hit my first emotional speed bump. I was felled by the trifecta of sickness, sleeplessness and hormones – an emotional perfect storm.

In America, I turn these anti-social days into highly productive catching-up-on-TV days while sequestering myself in a nest of pillows and duvets. Due to triple digit temperatures and international restrictions on Hulu this is not possible in Sare Sara. On the first day of my emotional shipwreck, I tried to save the day by meandering to town to buy beans for my family. This simple task turned into a 3 hour social call, with no fewer than 5 groups of people insisting that I stop by to chat and drink tea. While a large part of my time these days is spent sitting around awkwardly and drinking tea, it’s by no means my favorite activity.

With a developing head cold and puppy-induced sleep deprivation, my foggy brain struggled to understand Pulaar. Senegalese people usually respond in one of two ways when language proficiency fails me: 1) speak slowly and patiently explain themselves using a variety of phrases until I catch on in either Pulaar or French OR 2) Laugh, speak faster, mumble and say “A waawa Pulaar” which directly translates to “you can’t pulaar” and means, you suck at our language. Well, thanks. I usually have one of two responses to the latter: 1) laugh, say I’m trying and keep at it 2) switch to English and say something less than polite, then passive aggressively agree and walk away while trying not to cry. Yes, having punk 18 year olds who didn’t pass the 3^rd grade or 75 year old grandmas make fun of your language skills is a perfectly valid reason to want to cry. On the no good very bad day this happened continuously as more and more tea-gangs lured me off the road with friendly greetings and proceeded to baffle me with unintelligible conversation. By the time I made it home for lunch – with no beans to boot – I was about to crack. During lunch I pulled the “oh my eyes are watering because I just bit into a hot pepper and now I need to go to my room to get water” move and sequestered myself for the remainder of the afternoon.

The emotional perfect storm occured for me when all three elements lined up to tip the crazy scale. Two out of the three I can generally overcome, but throw in the lack of sleep or PMS and you’re in for a crazy – and often teary – day. Like all storms, I know it will pass, but when you’re up in the tornado like Dorothy it doesn’t seem like the house will ever land. Unfortunately my reclusive first reaction is exactly the opposite of helpful in these times, and I tend to perpetuate the downward spiral.

Luckily, my host dad forced me out of the house for day 3 of the wedding bonanza. Oh, fabulous, I thought. But to be honest, that was probably the best thing I could have done. As much as I didn’t want to sit around drinking tea and eating a third lunch, I actually had a good conversation in which I may or may not have agreed to marry someone. By the time I got home around 5, I felt much less like Dorothy and more like myself.