a poem to explain my process in writing this post:
I need to write this.
I need to explain this
I need to process
Whenever I recall I get anxiety,
It is too soon
But then it will be too late
I am feeling everything
And nothing
And the same
And different
I am feeling everything
I started this “blog” to recall the memorable moments in my service. I hadn’t planned on this being one of the topics. I hadn’t planned on this being my “hiatus post” it was too soon, unfinished.
March was a month that honestly started like any other month. I was excited for potential projects. It was MarchGADness, which is a month celebrating a rewarding gender empowerment work. My workzone planned an international women’s day event, I was guest training the new stage, I was training to be a part of the peer support network, I just finished an American Expat baseball tournament, I was planning a reproductive health and menstruation activity with my school health club, exclusive breast feeding causerie, some gender empowerment murals, and ending the month by welcoming a new member from the newest stage to the Djoloff.
Some of those activities got completed and some didn’t.
I finished February and started march with a baseball tournament that I was lucky to be a part of but our PC team unfortunately brutally lost early on. However, we still had an amazing time. We were living our much needed “little America time.”
All of that came to a crashing halt when we got our first COVID-19 case in Senegal.
We waited to hear about what we should do, we feared the worst, and every worry of “probably will blow over” went out the door. Even though I had a great time in my “little America” that doesn’t mean I was wanting to move back just yet.
I headed to Thies from Dakar to train to be a part of the Peer Support Network. A group of individuals I was so ecstatic to be a part of. This group of PCVs work together to be the private support of other PCVs and express empathy for the many struggles one can have during service. We made our first calls to the newest stage that just arrived one week earlier who were currently doing their first cultural stay in a neighboring town. Everyone was still in high spirits. Everything seemed to be settling from the first few cases fear.
I headed to my road town to do our event for International Women’s Day. This day was the first time I experienced more unwanted attention due to the COVID-19, and it seemed to get worse but other's experience was much worse than mine, especially our Asian-American volunteers, and I was lucky enough to speak the language and inform the way the virus spreads as well as how to prevent it. Our women’s day event involved holding a table at the giant market and with the help of one of our great Gender Champions, Ramatta, explained the purpose of the day and celebrated the achievements of gender empowerment.
I left that day to go to one of my favourite cities St. Louis until I had to go back to Thies to guest train the new trainees recently back from their first cultural stay.
Senegal was doing pretty well containing COVID-19, 5 cases I think were reported at this time, but the infected were members of the same family that were cared for very quickly and efficiently. However, the tensions rise around PC in general as other posts get alerts and report from their country consolidation points… and other areas in the world begin to restrict travel. The thought comes up that if the US closes it's boarders, we will need to be sent home because we need to be able to be sent home in emergencies. I breathe
We arrive in Thies and do our presentations and try to make use of the time in wifi and easy computer access as we have to do our semester reports that are due at the end of the month and the first draft deadline of March 10th just passed. We print what we need to, to prep for our upcoming MarchGadness activities and buy materials for those activities.
I head back to my site Saturday 14th after hearing that the holy city of Touba has reported a case. Touba is about 2 hours away from my site and people travel there pretty frequently.
In my first transfer, I hear that that the new number is 22 cases, and a possibility of about 1,000 infected people.
I also receive a message from PCHQ in DC informing that I can take “interrupted Service” amidst all these fears associated with COVID-19.
The fear grows that why would they be sending this out? Is it a fear of us leaving? Is there a fear of us catching it? I call my parents about the news and talk it over with them. At this time my home state is ground zero for COVID-19, I am still safer in Senegal than in my home. My parents agree that it is safer for me to stay where I am and reassure me that I can come home whenever no problem, they will support me. I also reassure myself that this message was not just sent to Senegal it was all PC, not because we recently had a spike in cases. I take a breath.
I arrive home and my family is telling me to put down my bags and wash my hands before we greet each other. Before I left we held a hand washing causerie and we made soap so I hand out the soap we made together and we all wash out hands together. I go to my health post and remind them that tomorrow we are having the reproductive health talk with the school health club, and they are excited to do so. I warn my family that even though I don’t want to go home I might be told to because PC is telling me to. I call my friends and talk over the stress with them. We take breaths together and make a plan to make out emergency bags better equipped than the random gathering of items that we were told to have. That afternoon the schools close a week earlier than their spring break and my health club activities get canceled. I breathe
Sunday the 15th I repack my emergency bag and make sure it does have the essentials and useful materials I need in it. Rumors of PC Morocco is leaving because their boarders are closing begin to flourish… we have more cases than Morocco at the moment. Take a breath. Talk to my friends and we will know in the next week how ell this outbreak in Touba is managed before we think anything will happen. I breathe
Monday 16th 7:30 am I get woken up by my phone ringing and it is my boyfriend calling me and asking if I had read my emails, I reply with a sleepy no and quickly conclude in my head that the only reason he would be calling me this early about emails is if something bad happened.
“we are being evacuated”
I was right
I sleepily respond and say “ok, well I guess I will get up and start packing, who sent this? Oh the head of PC. Have we been told what to do? No, ok well I guess I would rather make sure I have things now than later. Do we have a time line? No, well still lets get going then I guess.”
I hang up and find that my family and friends in America have been messaging me since late last night, they knew this news before me. I was asleep. I felt love from afar. I cry
I don’t leave my room, for the next 4 hours. I make piles and organize my things. My host mom comes in and asks what I am doing, I have to tell her nothing. After being instructed to not inform anyone of this news that they need to go through the culturally appropriate channels to inform the country the PC is leaving, I felt completely secretive with my family and keeping this key piece of information from them. I decide to colour these “women of Africa” pages with my family. I cry
The next day I can tell my family and I cry. I don’t leave my house. They ask me when I am leaving, and I don’t know, they ask when I will return, and I don’t know. I cry
I continue to pack and cry. I don’t know what else to do
The next morning, I find out that I am leaving in a couple of hours to my road town. I cry and tell my family, I cry and tell my health post. I leave in the same way I came in, in the front seat of a Toyota truck with 4 men in the back holding my stuff onto the car. I head back to my road town to meet up with some of my Work Zone for our consolidation point. Today is Wednesday, tomorrow we head to Thies, tonight we drink coco and whisky, make glowstick crowns, and eat bonbons.
We wake up and wait for our car to show up, it takes a while. Police are doing checks to make sure people wash their hands and checking passports. It arrives with other volunteers already squished in from around the area. We say goodbye to the Djoloff area.
We arrive in Thies and see our schedule for the next three days that we will leave on Sunday and get our connecting flights to our home states. We hear that Senegal is closing airspace the following night, we don’t know how this will affect us at the moment.
We go to do our quick souvenir shopping that we can and go to our “PC bar” and hangout until our new curfew. We eat on the floors because right now there are 300 volunteers in a place meant for 70 volunteers.
Crying, laughing, dancing, hugs, yelling, and so much more, fill the night.
We wake up on the following day Friday getting ready for our next 3 days of 8 hour sessions. I get breakfast and get coffee for my friends and I see my other friend, Hannah, adjusting a schedule. It looks smaller. It is. We leave this afternoon to the airport.
Everyone gathers for the new announcement and everything is in hyper drive, emotions and what has to be done before we leave. I cry more and more, and start to get those red dots around my eyes from burst capillaries that toddlers get after a tantrum. I eat my last mango
Everything is packed and I start to say goodbye to staff that were so supportive to me. And cry.
I get on a bus, get a sandwich, and see the “Corps de la Paix” leave my sight.
We have our own charter flight that all 300 of us are on including embassy members. The Ambassador greets us at the airport. And we all make movements to prep to leave on the flight at 7pm.
Washington DC; we arrive late at night Friday. We are the only ones there. The goodbyes start.
I am skipping this part because it is making me cry and it is basically a goodbye to all my close friends that I thought I would have more time to build a relationship with and we had a relationship that is unlike any other. It was hard. And I cried. A lot.
Spend a day in a hotel, and Sunday we catch our scheduled connecting flights and more goodbyes.
More bits that I will skip
I arrive in Seattle. I don’t have anyone to pick me up because my family is compromised, and I can’t quarantine with them.
That is one of the hardest parts. Going through this and all you want it a support system there for you and hug them. But I can’t, every person in my support system I have to be separated from. I cry
And quarantine begins. And is filled with video chats with my PC Family and my American Family. I cry, laugh, yell, dance, sing, hug a pillow, and breathe.
That is what happened in March…
Someone in my stage said it really well: I wanted to leave with memories not dreams.
I don’t really know what the next steps of this blog are because at the moment this was my last PC month for a while and that is what this blog was for. So who knows… a lot of it is unfinished.
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