Being a year in country can bring a lot of emotions; reflection on the work that has happened, the strength built from things I used to cry and complain about are not things I laugh about, what ideas are yet to come for work, the funny and embarrassing moments spent with my host family and friends, it is a huge moment in my service
But none of the matters because there is a lizard that is living in my toilet. That is all my mind goes to. That there is a lizard in my toilet.
I do not have the mental capacity to reflect on the 365 days of living and working in Senegal. I do not have time to reminisce about my naive attitude towards literally everything that happened to me in these last 52 weeks. I cannot look back at these last 12 months and be like “oh remember when it was so hot?”… NO! there is a lizard in my toilet.
Entering that conference room on a cold Philadelphia day with my new government issued friends we had no discussions on this topic. Yeah, we did many talks about culture shock blab la bla but did anyone warn me about a LIZARD. IN. MY. TOILET. Nope. That night my new government friends and I went to a TGIF and tried 5 times to get the perfect “cheers! boomerang” to post to Instagram we were not concerned about lizards swimming in our toilets. When we found out that we were getting on that plane by ourselves and keeping a head count of ourselves and that this was really happening is about the same fear that I have in this moment about a lizard in my toilet.
Landing, the plane has stopped, and I am waiting to get off the plane. My stomach feels like I am at the top of a roller coaster and I have taken that first roll towards down. Everything is slow and I know what is to come I can see it and my stomach is preparing for it, I am preparing for it but all memory of roller coasters has left my brain so I have no idea what feeling to prepare for.
Getting our bags and suitcases on a bus and then being handed cookies to eat before we take our malaria pills. The first thing we are told is that we need to eat before we take our malaria pills… not that one day a lizard will live in your toilet.
We arrive at the training center with a parade entrance and the feeling of about to go down am incline with no control has been fully replaced by exhaustion, hunger, and wanting to cry. But first we celebrate with out future instructors and guides to help us through this 27-month journey.
That looking down at the steep incline and slowly rolling towards it feeling gathers in me repeatedly through many different experiences we are thrown into. However, it has changed from that top biggest incline to one of the lower follow up ones.
Except for the whole lizard thing… that was fear. Not roller coaster fear. Actual fear. I have no idea how to fix this problem but one thing that I know I have learned from 12 months being in Senegal, is that it happens and I will find a way to solve it because a lizard will not live in my toilet for the next 12 months.
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