There and Back Again

If you look through my journal, the majority of my entries start with an excuse about the reason that I have gone such a long time without writing.  It apparently has become the same thing with my blog.  The thing is, I have so much to write about from the past three months, and it’s been hard to know where to start.  The PECADOM Plus malaria project scale-up was launched in July, and so much happened during the five days of the project launch (which may well end up being the most important five days of my service) that I spent about 6 weeks journaling about all of the crazy incidents that could have blown everything but miraculously didn’t.  I didn’t want to forget a thing, but I knew it would be too much detail to blog about.  Even with all that time journaling, I didn’t even get to day 4.  There will be a blog post about it all and what came after, but not this one…at this point, I might as well wait for some results, and we just completed the midline evaluation of the project, comparing the 15 project villages with the 12 comparison villages that we could get to during the height of rainy season, so midline results are coming soon.

Right after the project launch, our dear friends Marija and Michael Crosson came to visit, and I am hoping that there will soon be a post written from their perspective of the wonderful time we shared in Kedougou (hint, hint, you two). After their visit, it was only a matter of making it through Ramadan before we were to embark on a journey to a strange land: America. 

Picking the dates for this trip home was a tricky business.  We had to go home early enough to be able to spend time with my sister Jill, who started a teaching job in Wyoming, and late enough to be attend two very important weddings, one where I was an usher and another where I was a bridesmaid.  There were birthdays and family reunions, and, of course, the fact that we were trying to schedule all of this in the middle of the implementation of the malaria project.  The project entails low level community health workers doing sweeps of their village each Monday to test for and treat simple malaria, so we arranged the trip to miss as few Mondays as possible in order to maximize our potential for supervision of villages throughout the five month project.  Fortunately, our good friend and close neighbor, Karin, has been highly involved with the project since its beginnings on a smaller scale in our friend Ian’s area last year, and she took over the coordination, no problem.

Because I have thoughtful and inquisitive friends and family, I was put in a place of reflection about my time in Senegal and at home almost constantly during our time in the states.  The airport in New York brought several surprises.  I was amazed by the diversity surrounding us as we waited for our bags in order to go through customs and then equally amazed by instinct to carry my huge duffel bag on my head.  We were blown away by prices and found ourselves converting dollars into West African Francs (this beer is 5 mil???) 

Our first real meal was during our strategically planned overnight layover in Minneapolis.  Kara picked us up at the airport and drove us to a dive bar that was filled with familiar faces and featured the Juicy Lucy, a hamburger where the meat is infused with cheese.  We had heard of this Minneapolis delicacy in the food-fantasy –filled weeks leading up to the trip and made the request.  It was delicious, and I have no regrets, even though my I later learned that my stomach had basically forgotten how to process meat, and Pat and I spent most of the night alternating turns in the bathroom.  It should be noted here that on the way to the airport in Dakar, our country director, who kindly dropped us off, warned us that, once stateside, we should not talk about our intestinal issues in polite company.  That first night made the warning difficult to adhere to.

Often throughout our time at home, people asked me if it was weird to be back.   I had fully expected it to be, but I guess a year and a half in West Africa, no matter how significant, can’t erase 18 years in one house in Montana.  It was shockingly easy to slip back into such a comfortable way of living.  I did appreciate every single hot shower, however.

I know it will be hard when we make the real transition back to America in just over six months.  But for this visit home, we were able to just focus on seeing people we loved, being in the mountains, eating delicious and nutritious food, and enjoying the general glory of America.

I know that a lot of people who read this blog were people I saw when back home, so I’ll stop with the reflections here and just let the pictures (and captions, I guess) do the talking.

I left my site on the evening of Korite, the second biggest holiday (notice my fancy outfit).  This was not the plan, but since the lunar calendar is not exact, it's the way things worked out.  It turned out that it was next to impossible to get a car to the regional capital, and another volunteer and I had to throw down to pay for a police car to take us.

The voyage took four days from our home in Senegal to our home in America, but with such a welcome crew, who can complain?

Family pictures at my Grandpa's 91st birthday party--I've got some stellar cousins..

Grammy!  We'll be back just in time for her 90th birthday next May.

My sister was able to come up for a few days before starting her teaching job, and her boyfriend Bret was able to join us for the weekend.  So good to be all together.

The familia at our cabin, one of my favorite spots in the world.

Hiking with Mama.

Lava Lake with Emily.

Pat's Mom's family had a family reunion on Hebgen Lake.  Somehow I grew up an hour and a half away and have never been there.  This photo is the fifth or so in a series where I can't seem to keep my eyes open, so it's that I'm really surprised here.

Natusi, Emily's dog, gets a good view of the lake.

The moutain mornings were so cold!  It was so fun to be able to bundle up!

We drove through Yellowstone on our way back home from the reunion.

Wearing shorts and showing my knees in public really took some getting used to.

Hot potting in the boiling river!

Demonstrating the skills I have learned in Africa.

First of two wedding weekends.  Back to Minneapolis for my college roommate Kara's wedding.  Weddings are the best.  So many good people in one place to celebrate love.


One of the highlights of my trip home: surprise rendition of Toto's Africa just after Kara and Dan were pronounced husband and wife.  Rachel Reckin is a rockstar for pulling this off.

Wedding weekend number two!  This time we drove to Tacoma for another reunion with some of the best people around.  

So honored to be a bridesmaid in Kerri and Jame's wedding.  Kerri is one of my dearest friends from PLU.  You know you've been gone for a long time when your friends get engaged to people you haven't met yet!  Fortunately, I approve in a big way.

There were so many good times I didn't get pictures of.  A whirlwind trip back to Missoula, where every hour was booked with a date to catch up with someone fantastic and we realized that we felt just as home there as in the Gallatin Valley.  Game night with my mom's friends, whom I have adopted as my own.  So many good meals.  A 30th birthday party.  A pedicure when I still had henna on my feet, and my pedicurist didn't have a clue what to do with me and basically rubbed the tops of my toes raw, laughing all the way.  We were exhausted from our efforts to try to spend good time with as many people as possible, but we didn't come home to rest.  We knew what would rejuvenate us, and it did.  Thank you to everyone who was a part of that rejuvenation.

When we got back to our hut, this jungle of a yard awaited us--this had been dirt when we left.

This is what you get for leaving during rainy season: a bunch of weeds and a banana tree that is thriving.  All of our clothes also smelled like mildew.

So it's back to the grind.  Except for here, the grind means finding ways to make it down ridiculous roads, made almost impassable by the rains to measure the incidence of malaria in my project's comparison villages and training midwives to screen for cervical cancer.  There's nowhere else I'd rather be.