Super?

8-04-09


The internet has been a little difficult to come by over the past couple of weeks. No complaints here. I mean, I am in the Peace Corps after all. Today, I have posted two posts in the order I wrote them. I can’t tell you what to do, but I recommend reading the previous post first. Otherwise you’ll miss a lot of the plot . )

So, here I am. In the real-life Peace Corps, and it absolutely feels that way. Pre-Service Training (PST) wasn’t quite like this. In Pre-Service training, I had 4 American friends who I talked to on a daily basis and I also knew a few kids in the village who knew English fluently. Now that I am in my permanent site I don’t have that anymore. The concept of living two years in a small, foreign village has finally sunk in. “Petrified” might be a good word to describe that initial feeling. After a few days I was able to get out and embrace my situation by talking with my neighbors. That helped a whole lot.

This past week, on the whole, has been good. It was the town “Sepour”. The Sepour is a celebration where everyone in the village and those who have immigrated out of the village come together to celebrate. A lot of my time this week was spent helping with set up. It was good for two reasons: 1. It was manual labor which is a good way to start showing that I am serious about helping out in this village. 2. My buddy Collin, who I met on the first visit, was one of the guys in charge of setting everything up. He is close to my age and doesn’t live in the village but came back to help out with the festival. It was good to have a familiar face during my first week.

The weekend came and the village was flooded with people. The people who came were family to the people who are living in the village. It was actually quite a big deal. There was live music, a makeshift bar/restaurant and all sorts of vendors that were set up in a field near the village. I met quite a few people who could speak English as well.

There was one man that I met named Vincty who is living in Connecticut now. He was shocked to learn that an American had come to live in the village he grew up in. It was nice to meet many English speakers who had a personal connection to the village. They were able to tell me things about it that I didn’t necessarily pick up on. Also they introduced me to other people in the village who are currently living here. Reflecting on this now, I am quite lucky to have had the opportunity to make the friends I did this weekend.

There will be a lot to read today, so I wont go on any longer about the Sebour. I will leave it be with one story;

Saturday night, an all-night disco and bon-fire were featured. Around 4 in the morning, I stood with some friends and other weary partiers around the bon-fire. The bon-fire started to die-out so I took it upon myself to kick the fire back up. Poking around the fire for a few minutes I managed to get the flames to start back up. It was then that I noticed the group of people around the fire weren’t really talking to each other anymore, and instead were watching me. I returned to my place with my friends and watched the fire. It occurred to me how appropriate that felt. In essence, that is exactly what I am trying to do in this village. I am trying to kick up the embers of a fire to get it blazing again.