A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a Global Citizen Year event. With new and old faces, prospective and returning fellows, and many of the people that make Global Citizen Year tick, I felt the close of another circle. This loop, the mark of being one year back from Senegal and one year through university, was officially closed. Trying to wrap up all of my thoughts about Global Citizen Year and what it means to me, I came to what I wasn’t going to say: how it changed the classes I took, led me to co-chair the Ventures Committee of Nourish International, shifted my value of grades to learning, flipped the rhythm of my thoughts, led me towards a new major, enlightened me about development, drove me to make more of a change in the world, causes me to skip through languages when thinking, etc.- all true, but insufficient descriptions. To try and describe the intangible impact, I came to the people and the possibilities.

Throughout my whole year in Senegal, many of the best moments I had were not grand events, such as a safari. In fact, the glimpses of perfection often came about while doing nothing much — taking a walk hand in hand with Awa, languishing in the twilight heat, reading with my best friends sister Maymouna nuzzled up close to ask French questions, obtaining recipes from everyone who would give them — everything that seems insignificant never failed to bring me joy because of the people surrounding me. My new found friends, widened family, and other fellows gave my moments weight with the lightness of joy. One year and thousands of miles away from Senegal I have other fellows that will always understand my particular intricacies. They laugh at my smoked peanut butter cravings, understand the ways our lives and university experiences are a bit different now, and are great friends who I never would have met otherwise. On the Senegalese side, I have had the pleasure of hosting my Senegalese uncle at Carolina. Beyond this, I have reached out to the local Senegalese diaspora to find the safe haven of understanding and longing for the land of teranga that often flares up. If anything, Skype is my superhero, letting me speak with my family across the world. Though I am far from many of these people, GCY gave me the chance to meet them- to have them sweetening my life.

The view over 120ft. above the Brunei Rainforest

Other than contributing to the lushness of my existence, Global Citizen Year has opened up a myriad of possibilities for me. Right now I’m 120ft above the rainforests of Brunei, on the Island of Borneo (I KNOW….. BORNEO!!!). By some grace, I was accepted into a UNC scholarship program for this summer, which takes me to Singapore, Brunei, and India. When I was writing my application, it was clear to me that my experience from last year was impacting each word I chose. Whether it be through a direct example, such as my newfound passion for social entrepreneurship, or simply personal understanding, the experiences in Senegal gave my responses a quality of depth they never would have had. Simply put, without Global Citizen Year I doubt I would be looking over these treetops today. GCY has been my Emerson, turning every wall into a beckoning open door.

As I speak French with Expats in Singapore and salaam my Brunei friends, Senegal and Global Citizen Year impact me every day. Perhaps GCY has simply set my standards, forcing me to chase learning opportunities as valuable as it. Either way, Global Citizen Year has made the past year and foreseeable future into something that has exceeded any dream. I can only wonder at the people and possibilities before me, and thank GCY for the ones it continues to give.

Bringing my Senegalese pants to Brunei where I'm trimming pandan leaves to make mats

GCY Founding Fellow Michael Wilson and me at UNC Chapel Hill's Holi Celebration, 2010.

The idiom “good grief” has always seemed a bit oxymoronic to me. How can it be that grief is good in anyways? Perhaps this is why “good grief” is often used as an exclamation expressing something bad that has come along- like rain on a birthday cake outside with candles lit. Good grief, it’s raining! Mon Dieu! A, la vache! There were many points throughout this past year when those phrases passed through my head or out of my mouth. I lost a loved one back home, ran out of water for days, waited hours for things ranging from prayers to cattle crossings, had skin mysteriously melt leaving scars as the only reminder, wilted in humidity and heat that one could seemingly swim through, was propositioned just the same by boys at knee height and those old enough to have shrunk back down, had my brain packed with information and thoughts till it was obvious words and letters would start pouring out of my ears, and so many more things. But pardon me! It seems that I never really got the point through. I, in fact, am a fan of rain, birthday cakes, candles, and good grief. While every moment I went through was not a moment of good grief, many of those that I just listed (and more) can be counted as such.

Good grief to me consists of those experiences which may not be that pleasurable in themselves, but at the end of the day you get to look back and see that something good did come out of them.

Today I have been back in America for exactly 101 days. Early in the morning on April 30th I set foot on US concrete at JFK International, but I feel like I never actually hit the ground. The past three months have been blissfully happy as I worked on my capstone, reintegrated into my home culture, and enjoyed the company of people that I had missed dearly. All the while I have been working out how I merge my experiences from this past year with those of the rest of my life. I escaped a bit from myself though- not really responding to e-mails, forgetting blogs, delaying personal reflection in my diary, and not even talking to the people I had grown so close to. When I was lying in my bed last night chasing the ever evasive dreams, I woke up from one I have been living-grief. I cut myself off from Senegal unconsciously so that leaving and moving on wouldn’t be so horrible. This was never a bad grief. If anything it was a peaceful ignorance of how deeply I cared for every single moment of this past year. Feeling my sorrow hurts a bit more, but in the good way. By simply existing it means that I had the chance to go through everything I did. Now that, my friends, is good grief.

The phrase that keeps going through my head? It feels like a dream. When I actually say it out loud, I am referencing how surreal it is to be leaving my host family and Senegal – a fact that I have known, but something that was never quite manifest throughout this journey. When I think about my time here, it is just as much of a dream – weaved of those sublime tales that only comes from the caverns and crevices of one’s imagination, not the actualities of reality.

Where I am now – leaving my host family tomorrow, then all of Senegal, to reuniting with the other fellows and then my friends and family – is a whirlpool. There is quite a concoction of emotion in that one run-onish sentence. Sometimes I almost feel nothing- a void of waiting, leaving, and the unknown there as a blank gray slate for the colors of moments un-had to be painted on. Then there are those small blips when really nothing has happened. Perhaps a small phone call about dinner – nothing really, save a voice. In that instant, my mind is lost in my heart with my throat caught in between. It is a grace of gratitude for all of the moments that have fallen onto my path, full of the happy heartache that accompanies the past tense of each and every one.

Pardon me if you catch me in either state. I know it’s not exactly the description of a stable person. Dreams aren’t stabilizing things though. They throw you up into the clouds, roll you through the flowers, and let you fly. Many thanks. Many hopes. More dreams.

Last week I met a Brazilian-Baptist-ex-missionary current NGO worker named Salete. On Friday, Alec and I went along with her and her Brazilian-medical-Baptist missionary friend to the Village of M’Bissaou where she helps out at the local Case de Sante each and every Friday, has a football school with her husband, and aids the village in connecting them to different organizations.

First we visited a school that was started by Madame Wade’s (the Presidents wife) NGO, and funded by a Moroccan donor. I really didn’t know schools like this existed here- I literally was walking around with my mouth open half o f the time. From the outside it was beautiful with each building domed in the Moroccan style and covered in a cream paint. Inside the gates were trees galore -manguiers, a rare tree arboretum, and a garden. To the side was a fenced in building being used to store the organically grown produce from the nearby fields and the compost that fertilized them- a perfect full circle scene if you may. Throughout the grounds one sees colored swingsets and play materials scattered about. When we actually went into one of the brightly lit classrooms there was no let down- space enough for the nicer desks, larger blackboards, air flowing, and sun shining in though the large windows.

The biggest shock had to be the computer room though. Maybe thirty computers lined up, all plugged in and available for use, early-age French DVD’s being used for language acquisition, a teacher that can fix the computers, enough power to turn them all on and at the same time, and even a printer/scanner for the teachers use. In Senegal timeliness is a huge problem, especially in the school system. Teachers arrive on time rarely, late most of the time, and are absent often. To address this problem, rooms were build on school grounds for all of the teachers to stay in during the week (each with its own computer), cutting out transportation and food excuses often used. Once a week local women are taught how to read and write using the schools rooms. Forgive me if I seem incredulous, but after seeing public and private schools that cant even come up to one of the aforementioned aspects, it’s a bit shocking. What would cutting out the regular gloomy, crowded, concrete blocks do to Senegal’s education system? More importantly, what would it do for the students?

We then made our way to the woman’s group faming co-op. Here, Madame Wade’s NGO provided low-cost loans and information to the woman’s group. On sis hectares of land there are 125 plots of land, with one woman individually cultivating each plot. Fertilized by compost made at the school, watered by a manageable drip system, crops of onions, potatoes, and peanuts are grown. This produce is used to feed local families, with surpluses being sold.

Our last stop was the Case de Sante where Alec and I helped take blood pressure and weight of patients before they went to see the two Brazilians. We witnessed one person really making a difference as Salete greeted each and ever patient, in perfect Wolof, like and old friend- and many were. Visits cost roughly a dollar, and if you need any medication that is available (which is not much), that is given generously and free. In serious cases, such as the woman with fat visible through chewed up stitched skin, people are sent on up the health structure. More often than not though, patients leave with a treatment plan for their malady,  and the information to keep them healthy within the context of their lives. For example, one grand-dame came in with headaches from high blood-pressure, and left with a couple ibuprofen, instructions for them, and how to cook her ceebujen in a healthier manner.

Throughout the whole day, it felt a little bit like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factor- these amazing things tha tnever seem to exist or work here, a little bit of darkness in full view at the Case de Sante, the village winning the golden ticket for the school over twenty-two others, and even a phone booth out of nowhere. The biggest similarity though, would be the sense of wonder one is left with- at what is, and what could be.

Dear You, Person reading this, maybe even GCY applicant,

Hows life ? Whenever my friends and I talk that’s where we start. Last year at this time, life was centered around school , soccer, and figuring out college . The thought of a gap year started when I was applying for scholarships, and the ones that excited me most were those that focused on travel, experiencing the world, and learning through it. Even after I was done with all the applications, I now had this little bird flying around my head with those ideas, or dreams might be a more appropriate term. Now I have always been a self-professed geek – I love school, learning, and even back-to-school shopping, so this new found obsession did not derive from not wanting to go to school. If anything, it came from exactly that: my “geeky” love for learning.

In talking with my friends and family about this urge, I magically found out about Global Citizen Year, read up on it, and decided that I was going to do every single thing within my power to get into the program. It had everything could have asked fo r- travel, immersion in the culture, a focus on learning , especially about development, and the list goes on. Fastforward to getting accepted (went something like me thowing my phone in the air, dancing in public, and then running around to find my phone because I realized Abby was still on the line), Fellows phone calls throughout the summer, finding out I was going to go to Senegal, and finally getting on the plane to go to California for training.

Those two weeks were a flash before my eyes, jam-packed with classes concerning everything from leadership to looking at the impact of NGOs in developing countries. Nothing though could really prepare me for how much I was about to learn once I stepped foot in Senegal. In the first couple of months much of what I gleaned had to do with the people and things that I missed, those that I realized did not matter as much, and then the surface of Senegal composed of basic greetings, transportation, learning names, getting accustomed to the climate and food, etc. From there things only got deeper with the understanding of everything that was around me. I have cathetar-fed turtles, carried on coherent conversations in Wolof and French, bargained with the best of them in the market, spoken and been involved with NGOs, started an impact study, cooked food that makes your arteries clog on sight, learned more about myself than I knew was possible, grown up while still keeping Peter Pan close to my heart,  skinned a sheep, taught classrooms full of students English from the essential words of “duck, duck, goose” to music genres, and am continuing to discover something each and every moment. All at once, it has been different in every way from what I expected, yet an adventure that has surpassed anything I could have imagined.

There were worries before all of this, missing family, friends, holidays, and events, taking a very different path than that of my future classmates, going somewhere so far away, and of course the classic,  “is it the the right decision” question. I cannot give you the answers to any of these questions, for the responses will be different for each and every person. Yet if you are looking for a chance to open up your world and discover the rest of it, I know that in the least, Global Citizen Year has given that to me.

With that, I must leave you. Good luck, and whether you decide GCY is right for you or not, I can only hope you the best,

See you on the other side of the ocean,

Ananda R. Day

Years ago when the French first arrived in Saint Louis du Senegal, male colonists created transient marriages with local women while in country and would return to France, leaving everything, including any relationship title, behind. Going by the name of “mariage à la mode”, these relationships were used by locals to advance themselves through associative power transfer, in the very least gaining status by their connections with the white colonists, and at the most “escaping” to western civilization. Though many details have changed, a modern day marriage à la mode can still be seen in existence in present day Senegal.

Last week I was eating breakfast at the family restaurant, and in walked Marga (or Margia while traveling). She is average height, mid-thirties, not very sweet on the eyes in the kindest way possible, a Dutch philosophy teacher for first through twelfth graders, and happens to be in Senegal for sex. Specifically with Ibrahim, who is twenty-two, intelligent, speaks seven different languages, and is perfectly beautiful. While Ibrahim was fetching her breakfast, we found common ground in the fact that we both speak English better than French, and then began to discuss our reasons for being here: me with my studies, and her with Ibrahim. It turns out that she had met him on the beach of Kumba Diallo after she had become sufficiently fed up with all of her Baye Fall flings. Our areas converged on the topic of development, for what does this burgeoning sex and escape trade mean for a country today?

Tourism, peanuts, and music are the current industries floating Senegal along the upper tier of developing countries. Tourist come here and spend their money, be it on trinkets, transportation, lodging, guides, food, flights, or “buying some love” (a direct quote from Ms. Margia). Economics says that when there is a market and demand, no doubt a supply will be found. With its developing status and constant search for new economies, it is no wonder that Senegal has caught onto this trade. Unemployment is rampant here, even for those with college degrees. With the uneducated and graduates sitting side by side on a bench drinking tea, and a constant need for money to supply and infinite list from school to food, most will do anything for even the scent of income. This is set in contrast to the excess of the west, where surplus everything is much more common.

With respect to relationships, Toubabs (whites, or foreigners) offer three options today. The first option is the quite clear cut prostitution. The locals make a profit, the foreigners get what they want, and its over in whatever amount of time. Option two is the in country relationship. While here, the local will essentially be have a liaison with the foreigner, traveling, and eating, experiencing, ensemble. They may get gifts or expenses taken care of, but the most that comes out of this is a status high that many hold in a possibly warped proportion.

This is only a lead up to the third and final option, which is also the goal many, not just those involved in enticing tourists on a regular basis – a real relationship and escape. The thinking being that if you make a foreigner fall in love with you, they will take you back with them, and you will have a better life and more opportunities, and hopefully send aid back to family in Senegal. Talk to any local, and presenting a migratory option will be the number one impact they think westerners have here in Senegal. Stagiaires (interns) have come to the Village des Tortues and swept up workers, my host father talks of western women who cannot find eligible bachelors in their home countries coming here for prospects, and that doesn’t begin to explain how readily people acknowledge this certain foreign effect.

In a culture that supports the export and exploitation of its own people as a means to a better end, what lies on the unfortunate side of the business? Obviously the spread of disease is an ever present roar, especially with beast of AIDS in much of Africa. Beyond that though, there is the future of the people involved in this undependable commerce. Once their youth is gone, there is no saying what they will do. Yet, that just leaves them in the same situation and hundreds of thousands of their countrymen. What is to say that this is a good or bad thing then? Does the government even address it as a problem? Essentially, who cares?

Westerners are still coming to Senegal and creating fleeting status propping relationships or taking some back with them, extending the marriage à la mode fad to the current day. When Marga was exiting with Ibrahim, she parted with wishes that I have a good life. Left with a feeling of moral confusion at her actions and the obvious good person she was, my feelings mirrored the issue at hand. From the outside I can say these marriages à la mode feel wrong, if only for the exploitation, but I’m not the one looking for a hope in passports either.

A couple of weeks ago a lot of personally and monetarily valued things were stolen from me. Cameras, phone, favorite shirts, money, and so on. The roughest part by far being the loss of my notebook containing four months of notes and all of the studies that I had completed in Noflaye thus far. The first two days were a bit rough as thoughts of all the time and money that were lost and would have to be used in order to correct the situation played a loop in my head. I may well have been the person who was hit most directly, but what mattered more was the time lost that my friends put into helping me do interviews, or Rachel having to help me figure everything out. It really wasn’t about being angry at any person, or even the events. More than anything, it was a stretch to try to actually forgive myself for not thinking of all the “what ifs” in the world, of what I could have done better. Well, in all honesty, that wouldn’t have been possible before. If this had happened when I first arrived, I would have beaten myself up for days on end, and I can only hope that I wouldn’t have let it define my year. Somehow though, it turns out that I could, and did forgive myself.  It’s a bit surreal to realize that a few short months have created such a shift in me.  So I leave you with my friend John Mellancamp, for oh yes, life does, in fact, go on.

The morning is still dark as I sit in my Ndiaga Ndiaye on the way to Rufisque. The single light bulb hanging from a failing red wire illuminates me, casting a grand silhouette, maybe four times my size, on the passing scenery.

The past few weeks I have been getting a wealth of opinions on aid projects in Senegal from different people. Always associated with the white foreigner, the missions seems to be like my shadow-bloated, by inefficiencies and lack of follow up. There is plenty of money being thrown into the aid pot. For if you have a cause, there is likely to be someone supporting it, from environmental protection to helping school children to mental illness. The main difference seems to come from what creates the shadow. Is there something concrete behind it, or is it just the wind?

The first popular path is the politicians route where one procures the aid funding (from the government or an aid organization), creates a project that is usually focused around “sensiblisation” (informing part of the population), obtains volunteers, feeds and gives shirts to these volunteers with half of the funding, and finally keeps the last half of the funding to fill up the coffers. Corruption is rampant in almost all developing countries and on the rise in Senegal specifically. However, there are some projects where only the government can sufficiently address the problem. As private organizations who give to the campaigns though, NGOs have the opportunity to see exactly where their money is going and what it is doing. For their caused can be worthy, but if the money and effort do nothing but further a fraudulent system, what is the point?

The next path is a half support system, represented perfectly in my apprenticeship site of the Village des Tortues. It was created with the help of SOPTCOM, the European Union, the Senegalese government, and other donators. Currently my host father acts as the representative of SOPTCOM for the Village, working there around twice a week. The major issue within the Village itself is the structure that now exists. It was started, and can now subsist and function by itself, but there is no real room for improvement. Every now and then the government will give money if there is not enough to feed the turtles, or SOPTCOM will donate something or other to help update the Village, like a computer. Both resources give the Village a bigger safety net up to a certain point, allowing it to beg at both ends when there is some dire need, but never really let it progressively function independently. Just like this confused system, the actual impact of the Village des Tortues is buried underneath possibilities and dead ends.

Then there is the rare path of possible success, where there is a solid impact behind that wispy shadow of promotion. Hilary and I recently started working at L’Ecole la Sagesse, a private school helped along by a Canadian group that emphasizes teaching methods other than repetition. While their upper levels have not reached their potential yet, the lower schools have an unheard of near perfect success rate. Besides test scores, you can see the impact by just talking to a child and hearing something in return that is less of a parakeet, and more of an honest answer. Yet we still must wait and see what will happen in the future with the students, if they in fact will grow up to look outside of the “normal Senegalese box,” which is literally full of the same material it was when their grandparents were in school.

These routes of aid offer much hope, for in any case they show that people still care- that we have not settled into a normalcy alongside travesties. Though these Senegalese exhibits of aid do present a dire need, that being for the organizations and people to take a complete stake in the ownership and the impact of what they do. For the most part, there is no lack of ideas, just a lack in seeing that some things need the new dreams.

The morning is still dark as I sit in my Ndiaga Ndiaye on the way to Rufisque. The single light bulb hanging from a failing red wire illuminates me, casting a grand silhouette, maybe four times my size, on the passing scenery.

The past few weeks I have been getting a wealth of opinions on aid projects in Senegal from different people. Always associated with the white foreigner, the missions seems to be like my shadow-bloated, by inefficiencies and lack of follow up. There is plenty of money being thrown into the aid pot. For if you have a cause, there is likely to be someone supporting it, from environmental protection to helping school children to mental illness. The main difference seems to come from what creates the shadow. Is there something concrete behind it, or is it just the wind?

The first popular path is the politicians route where one procures the aid funding (from the government or an aid organization), creates a project that is usually focused around “sensiblisation” (informing part of the population), obtains volunteers, feeds and gives shirts to these volunteers with half of the funding, and finally keeps the last half of the funding to fill up the coffers. Corruption is rampant in almost all developing countries and on the rise in Senegal specifically. However, there are some projects where only the government can sufficiently address the problem. As private organizations who give to the campaigns though, NGOs have the opportunity to see exactly where their money is going and what it is doing.  For their caused can be worthy, but if the money and effort do nothing but further a fraudulent system, what is the point?

The next path is a half support system, represented perfectly in my apprenticeship site of the Village des Tortues. It was created with the help of SOPTCOM, the European Union, the Senegalese government, and other donators. Currently my host father acts as the representative of SOPTCOM for the Village, working there around twice a week. The major issue within the Village itself is the structure that now exists. It was started, and can now subsist and function by itself, but there is no real room for improvement. Every now and then the government will give money if there is not enough to feed the turtles, or SOPTCOM will donate something or other to help update the Village, like a computer. Both resources give the Village a bigger safety net up to a certain point, allowing it to beg at both ends when there is some dire need, but never really let it progressively function independently. Just like this confused system, the actual impact of the Village des Tortues is buried underneath possibilities and dead ends.

Then there is the rare path of possible success, where there is a solid impact behind that wispy shadow of promotion. Hilary and I recently started working at L’Ecole la Sagesse, a private school helped along by a Canadian group that emphasizes teaching methods other than repetition. While their upper levels have not reached their potential yet, the lower schools have an unheard of near perfect success rate. Besides test scores, you can see the impact by just talking to a child and hearing something in return that is less of a parakeet, and more of an honest answer. Yet we still must wait and see what will happen in the future with the students, if they in fact will grow up to look outside of the “normal Senegalese box,” which is literally full of the same material it was when their grandparents were in school.

These routes of aid offer much hope, for in any case they show that people still care-  that we have not settled into a normalcy alongside travesties. Though these Senegalese exhibits of aid do present a dire need, that being for the organizations and people to take a complete stake in the ownership and the impact of what they do. For the most part, there is no lack of ideas, just a lack in seeing that some things need the new dreams.

An account from the morning…

8:00 a.m. – Wake up, get ready for the day, head over to our family’s restaurant to go eat my bread and tegga degga (natural, no added hydrogenated oil, peanut butter, yum).

8:30 a.m. – Find out that the bread has, in fact, not already arrived at Mamour’s Boutique, and so we stop and pass the time by trying to be the first person to find the white, hearse shaped, bread car. There are an amazing amount of impostor cars.

9:15am- People search the other boutiques in town for the remnants of last night’s bread, which isn’t exactly soft anymore. About three people get to eat and go on with their days. Currently the whole village is at a standstill- no one goes anywhere or does much of anything, as we are all playing the waiting game. This would be why people have so much patience here.

10:03 a.m. – Thomas and I spot the bread car, I run to the restaurant to tell Penda (and the waiting customers), and the bread arrives!!!!!!!!! We  cheer, people eat, lives commence, and I go to work.

It’s easy to take something simple out of this situation – like if there was ever a war in Senegal, just go for the bread makers and the whole country would stop – yet it exemplifies so much more. The plain, empty, usually abundant, cheap white baguette bread that is sold here is essential to almost every person and household as a cheap way to get calories. While people eat things like chocolate spread or eggs with their bread sometimes, it is simply not within most families means to make meals, most of the times for huge households, that don’t contain a one food or another that can inexpensively fill people up. Here its rice, couscous for the poorer families (even though it has more nutrients), and bread and, from what I gather, its beans and tortillas in Guatemala. Either way, it is distinct example of the poverty and fragility with which the people around me live. One little thing, like not having the bread delivered, or how yesterday there was just simply no water, can completely change or halt life here. There are no back up plans, no second options to help life continue. For that takes money, space, liberty, ideas, whatever you may- all of which are harder to come by, the poorer you are.