On Sunday I made the decision to face yet another fear: amusement park rides—the big ones. I’m talking some of the biggest, scariest, and steepest in all of the mid-west. There isn’t much to do here, so trust me when I say that these coasters are the real deal. And I couldn’t have been more against the idea—at first.

I came into the park with a deep, sickening gut feeling, wobbly legs, and a spinning head. I just couldn’t shake it. Everywhere I turned there was screaming, metal screeching, and the sounds of wheels hard-pressed against solid steel at sixty-plus miles an hour. I passed one by one, shaking my head in dismay until a member of my group nudged me with an elbow.

“Roll the dice,” he said. “Take a chance; you can do this.”

Something familiar rang in the back of my head. Here I was, almost a year after hiking on the back of the biggest adventure of my young life and feeling the same feeling. Things had come full circle faster than I felt like I could ever process them. Change, relationships, new language, culture, and life had all taken a toll on the old fear and turned it into new gusto. So where was this bravery? I remember clearly overcoming and facing this same gut-wrenching, brain-tugging vortex of emotion. And I remember winning against it. The real roller-coaster was not in this amusement park, it was in the Global Citizen Year that I worked so hard to achieve. I HAD taken a chance, I did get off the ride alive, and when I turned back to look at what I’d done, the drops and twists from the ride I jumped onto in September never overlooked the pride and dignity I gained from getting off. There was no reason that anything should stop me now, especially not an amusement park ride on my home turf.

I smiled at this realization and looked up to the friend on my shoulder. I was in line before I knew it and everything familiar came sweeping back to me. Waiting in line was like waiting to take off on my first flight, boarding the car was like landing in a new country, the exhilaration of the up, and the terror of the down described to the point—in a shorter amount of time—what it was like to face this past year. And in a short minute the ride was over with only a memory and a swelling of great pride to turn around and look back on. But I couldn’t have been happier. Here I was, bringing the year of my life full-circle, facing the tough swirl and change of both a roller-coaster of life on a bridge year, as well as the literal rides at parks. And I didn’t stop at one real ride; I rode all of them in the park. And I won’t stop here; I will continue to find life’s greatest adventures because I know that when I look back, I will come to find how much there is to love about a life of roller-coasters. It was worth it then, and it’s worth it now.

Malaria is a preventable, curable disease, yet hundreds of thousands die from it annually. Why? There are a multitude of reasons, of course, some of them involving money, some of them involving the health care system, but many of them also involving prevention and education. And although issues with money and healthcare can often be circular problems, outside of that circle lies the basic steps: prevention and education.

Malaria No More is an NGO based in New York with the goal to end deaths caused by Malaria in Africa by 2015. Their approach – the simple basics: education of symptoms, for quick, efficient detection and therefore quick treatment, and prevention, which includes sleeping under a treated net during the evening. Malaria No More has teamed up with partnerships such as The Alliance for Malaria Prevention (AMP) and MACEPA in 32 countries around Africa. Training workshops, social networking movements, and events partnered with local NGO’s and companies begin on the inside and work their way out. A recent approach involves the sending of SMS messages to Tigo carriers in Senegal, reminding them that their children should be asleep under nets for a “fanaan jamm”, or “a night spent in peace”.  

One of these events, a walk in Dakar on April 17th, was one that I and many other fellows participated in for this cause. Seeing the faces of hundreds of Senegalese strangers all bound for the same cause paved a good path for the chance that eradication of malaria-related deaths in Africa by 2015 is a possibility. But with this possibility comes responsibility of not just Malaria No More, but of those who are educated about malaria and can prevent others and themselves from contracting this parasite. This responsibility begins with education and ends with placing your two-year old and your children under a mosquito net for a night spent in peace.

When I turn the faucet on and nothing comes out but the sound of gurgled emptiness in the pipes, I’m still not entirely sure what to do. Sometimes I stand awkwardly in the middle of my courtyard in the house and wait for the water to maybe come back on so I can take a shower. Sometimes I just don’t wash my clothes when I really need to, and I brush my teeth with the drinking water in my bottle that I should be using for, well, drinking. I’m still learning that not all things, especially here, are used for the things they’re intended to be used for.

So it was one of those dirty, grungy, I-didn’t-take-a-shower-last-night-and-now-I-don’t-even-feel-like-wearing-clean-clothes type of mornings that I felt truly proud of myself for my adjustment. I woke up and stayed in my pajamas all morning and helped with housework. When the maid walked in with a basin full of well-water on her head, my first thoughts were something along the lines of, “wow, I really want to do that someday”. So after doing the dishes and cleaning up under the staircase, low and behold we’re out of water again and the maid is nowhere to be seen. “This is my chance!” I’m thinking. And when I see the look on my mother’s face that there is no water and there very well should be, I’m practically jumping with excitement. Please ask me, please ask me, I can do it, I’m right here. Just say the word! I’ll go!

“Emily, would you go get some water from the well Marcel works at? You know the farm across the street. You know Marcel? There. Yes. Do you understand? Water,” she says cautiously.

I am beaming and quickly tell her yes in all three languages I know how to say yes in, and hurry across the street and into town with my big blue basin and a big hearty grin. I suppose I’ll admit that it took a minute to find exactly the door that led into the farm, but when I did, I cheerfully set my basin down to have it filled, with Marcel giggling at me for being slightly more bouncy than all the other women lined up who do this almost weekly. And then the moment came where I lifted the basin of water onto my head, and very very carefully walked out of the farm, across the street, down the street, and into my house. There was a little spilling and a lot of giggling and pointing from kids playing by the road, but it was beyond worth it. I’d have given so much money for a picture of me carrying a big water bin on my head in my pajamas. No more standing awkwardly waiting for life, or in this case, water, to happen. I’m carrying it on my head from here on out, even if it smells slightly like chicken farm.

I’m suddenly standing in front of the lunch table at the hostel in Dakar, day two. This is the day that the Senegal fellows are going to tell me what is written on the small slip of paper on my back. I can’t see it, but on this slip of paper my responsibility and life for the next 7 months is written in black ink. They answer “Yes” to my question about whether or not the apprenticeship slip of paper is education. I am more than overwhelmed and definitely not prepared in the least bit for that answer. I was praying for health care and had been a whole two weeks in a row beforehand. I’m angry and I’m thinking, “How is this happening? I don’t know how to teach kids! I don’t know anything about education! I can’t possibly do this!”

I have another flashback, eyes still closed – I’m walking to my homestay in Mermoz with Gus Ruchman in October. I’m this close to screaming at him for telling me to calm down about my apprenticeship. We’re leaving for our permanent residences in a few days and I just can’t handle it. I start to cry. I remember saying that I didn’t want to mess up a year of education for an entire class of students and that I can’t possibly do this. “Education should not be an experiment!” I tell him.

One last flashback occurs before I open my eyes again. It’s November 3^rd and I’m stepping in front of a class full of faces I don’t know. But I’m quick to realize something- I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid even for a second. We open the English Club meeting with “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands”. I don’t sing in front of people, it makes me nervous, but I am doing it anyways and I’m not nervous at all and I realize that I had been wrong before this very moment.

When I open my eyes I turn to my English Club with a smile. It’s March 23^rd and my students are getting ready to rehearse their opening day dialogue. While I watch them, I keep smiling, not just because I realize that they are speaking English and working hard and coming to the club and learning, but because I’m learning just as much as them every step of the way. I clap at their rehearsal when they finish and high five anyone within arm’s length. The director of the school who is sitting next to me nods in approval and says, “I’m not going to lie, I’m very impressed.” One of my students comes up to me and asks me in English, “Did we do a good job? Thank you, Emily.”

That night I write in my journal.

When I look down at the page it reads, “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy about being wrong.”

On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays of every week, I have English Club at a private school in Rufisque called, “La Sagesse”, which means “wisdom” in English. I try to wake up at around 8:15 am so that I can catch a bus in time and won’t have trouble getting to the school. But of course, usually all the precautions I take to try to avoid insanity is usually in vain. Crazy things will happen; one of these days I’ll stop trying to control it.

Next on my list is of course, getting dressed and getting ready for the day. I’m lucky enough to have a bathroom that partially works on the other side of the house where the “neighbors” live. My house has two families living in it with a big open courtyard in the middle, like most Senegalese houses. So in order for me to go to the bathroom, I have to leave my room, walk outside a few feet to the other side of the house, turn the water on from the outside and go in. But I’m not complaining at all, believe me. I appreciate the little things in life, like toilets.

When I’m finished with that, it’s time for “ndekki”, which is the first meal of the day. My house is on a little patch of land I like to call, “The Island,” because it’s not dead smack in the middle of Noflaye, but a little up the road from it away from hustle and bustle and most of the other people that live in the village. There are good and bad things about this, but it’s nice in the morning to not have to kick my brain into French and Wolof right after waking up so I can talk to a lot of people moving about. So in order to get to the restaurant, where my family gives me breakfast, I walk across the “island” about 30 feet or so, and go into the little restaurant in the next building over. I usually greet the few people I see passing in the morning, and Coumba, my cousin, who works in the restaurant in the morning.

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I typically make my own breakfast and sometimes my coffee, so it gives me some time to decompress and prepare for the day. My host dad buys me chocolate for breakfast because he says it’s comforting to me so far from home. Typical Senegalese breakfast is bread with some kind of spread and instant coffee or tea. So I eat my bread and drink my coffee and leave at around 9:00 a.m., God willing.

The next event on my list is special to me alone, public transportation to work. I have to take two buses and two taxis every day that I work, sometimes three taxis if I can’t find a bus, so at first this was a very intricate and very daunting process in order to get to school especially back when I spoke no Wolof, little French, and had no knowledge of the layout of the city of Rufisque. But I got the hang of it, and now I typically don’t have problems. Except for an unexpected surprise like the bus breaking down, the taxi getting pulled over by cops, or the bus dropping me off at the edge of the city and turning around, I usually get a bus to pick me up in half an hour or less, and I usually am close to the garage where I can get a taxi to the neighborhood my school is in. This is not always the case, but on good days, I don’t have trouble. So on good days, I make it to the garage by about 9:45 or a little earlier. After the bus, I walk to the far right side of a large patch of land called the “garage” right at the most common intersection in Rufisque. This “garage” is filled with a lot of different things: people, animals, food and fruit for sale, cars, taximen, and the occasional beggar. It can often be a busy and overwhelming place, but I keep my head away from distractions and make my way to the taxis that I know go to my neighborhood. When I find a taxi, the driver usually waits for the car to fill up, sometimes I get lucky and the car only needs me to take off, but sometimes I’m waiting for up to half an hour, depending on the day.

I take this taxi to HLM, the name of the neighborhood, and get out at the big soccer field in the middle. I then walk through rows of houses and pass a few boutiques until I arrive to see sometimes hundreds of the students gathered outside in between classes buying ice cream and fruit and sandwiches that are sold by local women and mothers of some of the students right out in front of the building. I usually arrive here at around 10:00 or so. I go into the school greet teachers, students, my boss, and my friends, and make my way off to another part of the neighborhood to work on the day’s lesson and study. I meet up with the Senegalese student name Elhadji who is also an apprentice from a university in Sebi typically around this time and we go to my boss’ house to begin the day’s lesson and study and rest a little. Except on Fridays when I have English Club in the morning, we have English club right after lunch up until about 6 p.m. And then I take all the aforementioned in reverse to go back home.

When life isn’t crazy and unexpected, this is my four days a week.

I’m finding that there is something amazing and natural about being someone’s child again, though, someone’s responsibility. And the more I grow accustomed to my family, the more I adore the thought of being a part of them. I have a special relationship and a keen admiration for each of them and that connection is helping me with the process of being a part of something I can call a family. Some days are harder than others, of course. Some days my little brothers get on my nerves and some days I just want to do what I want to do without asking for permission or telling my mother where I’ve been and where I’m going. But most days are the ones to be remembered. Most days I walk up the stairs and as my younger host brother, Tom, and I make eye contact, we automatically assume the position of karate-black-belt-street-fighters and begin swinging slow imaginary punches and kicks until one of us claims defeat and lies down on the cold stone floor, pretending an agonizing pretend death. Most days my younger sister by one month, Penda, asks me to help her with her English homework and we laugh together about how terrible her pronunciation of “r’s” and “l’s” are, and how American my French accent is. Most days I sit down to dinner with my family and feel like I really belong there. And when I think long and hard about it, I really miss the moments I had like that with my own family.

And there are the differences, of course, that separate my life in my blood family with the one in my host family, like eating on the floor around a big bowl instead of with a plate at a table, for example, or how I have to wash all my clothes by hand and assisting with the dishes is a hell of a lot harder than just rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher. And of course, how I can never really understand what any of my family members are actually saying to one another. But there are so many more similarities, it seems, than differences. My sister is always borrowing my phone charger, and I eat all the chocolate. My host mom and dad bicker and quarrel, and my two-year-old brother, Mohammed, really enjoys finding new ways to annoy everyone in the vicinity that happens to be much taller than him. Two-year-olds are universal, I always say. My other brothers, Abdulaye age 9 and Tom age 12, often are found hitting and wrestling with one another for no other reason than that they are boys far too close in age and that it might be some genetic predisposition with all pre-teenage boys that make it impossible for them to not beat one another up.

More than anything, though, it’s great to feel part of it all again, especially in a new place and a new country where every day in an adventure and sometimes a surprise. And as the holidays approach, it will be difficult to be without my family in the United States. But I couldn’t love or appreciate my new family more than I do, and spending this time with not only them, but the family I’ve created within the GCY Fellows, will be more than sufficient in making me feel a part of something big for the holidays and for the rest of my life.

I prayed that I would have the strength to sing in front of these people, I prayed that I would remember which chords came before which, I prayed, especially, that I would convey the message to my peers just how much this song meant to me. At one point in time, when I was a little younger, I played the guitar regularly, I drew and painted, and I sung every time I had the chance. But my fear kicked in and threw all of those things in the trash because I thought, “I’ll never be as good as so-and-so, so I might as well just give up.”

I truly missed the days when I considered myself an artist, and although I have my occasional bouts of creative inspiration, I find that these bouts of inspiration are quick to pass and often come at very inconvenient times. Not to mention my terrible habit of trying to avoid embracing them because of my fears that I will not express them properly. Essentially, it is a very sensitive subject, me and art. I always loved that part about me and at one point in my life I was doing it constantly and enjoying it above all other things. But over the past couple of years, if you’d have asked me to play for you, draw for you, or show you my talents, I’d politely decline because of my habitual, “I’m really not that good, no, really,” state of mind. The last weekend in Dakar, though, the fellows of Senegal gathered together for a moment of passage on the roof of our school at ACI Baobab.  I slipped up and told someone that I “used” to play guitar and pretty soon the whole group was urging me to play something. I got up and played the only thing I remembered how to play.

Something powerful struck me that night far beyond the music I was attempting to convey. I had a profound realization that completely negates the feelings I used to have about myself. The song, “Wish You Were Here,” by Pink Floyd, has been a favorite of mine since I watched my father play it in awe as a child. It was the first song I ever learned, and the only song I never forgot when I began to neglect the guitar at 16. I listen to that song often, when I feel unsure, lost, confused, and need a way to reach into the back of my mind for some solitude. I needed it a lot in Dakar. I struggled daily with being in two places at once. My body was in Africa, across the ocean, thousands of miles from home.

My mind, on the other hand, was on my couch in my apartment, eating Oreos and talking to my cats, waiting to get in my car to go to work. It was comfortable for me to keep a part of me there. But trust me when I say this: nothing is harder than being far from your own mind. In this way, I was making Senegal harder than it needed to be. That last weekend in Dakar, I could not explain the fear and anxiety I was feeling from the thoughts of finally being completely separated from the things that kept my mind at home. So when I strummed the chords and plucked the strings that night on the roof, I realized at once that I was here, and in order for me to finally be okay with this final move, I was going to have to be here completely.

Playing in front of my friends awoke that realization along with one other that I had buried for so long—I was an artist. All of this pain I was feeling, all of this homesickness, it wasn’t just because I was far away; it was because I was ignoring something essential to my being and my existence and something that I had been ignoring on my own volition for years. I needed this song, but I didn’t just need the song, I needed to sing it, I needed to play it, I needed to see that I could, even if I was afraid to. And this need in me awoke something greater than the song itself, but the symbol that it was for me. I had been neglecting the artist in me all these years and when I saw her again that night, my mind leapt off the couch in my apartment, got on a plane, and flew back to my body.

I am an artist, and I should never tell myself any less. My mind being somewhere else wasn’t because my body was gone, but because I was forgetting who my mind really was.

I found her waiting for me on a roof in Africa, completed.

It was scary, it 
was hot, it smelled strange and unusual, there were animals in the
 street, people speaking strange languages, and did I mention how hot 
it was? I’ve never been so hot before at nine o’ clock in the morning
in my whole life. All humor aside though, I was very very scared. And
when we got to the hostel and sat down for breakfast, which consisted
of bread, hot water, some powdered milk and coffee, and different
kinds of spreads, I could feel everything creeping up on me. While my 
friends laughed and joked and smiled amongst one another, Josh and I
stared at one another, the table, the flies, the city, and one another 
again. I could feel my face grow hot and my eyes well up with tears. I
couldn’t hear anything, I couldn’t speak. And I was once again 
completely embarrassed and ashamed for showing my fear in front of all
my confident and experienced peers. Our team leader saw and patted me
on the back, but I needed to go somewhere else. I was completely
 exhausted because I was far too anxious to sleep on the plane, and
after I laid down for a very hot morning nap, I think my roller
coaster was leaving the dip in the road and was creeping back up the
hill. I was going to be okay.

That night was very hot with all of the power outages, the fans were 
on and off, the streets were loud and my mosquito net was constantly 
bothering me. But I survived the night. Among a few other “dips” in
the road, which included discovering my apprenticeship and realizing 
it was not what I expected or wanted, and finding a metal wire in my
crepe when I was really enjoying my time at the beach, I am currently
 very comfortable in my bed at my host family’s house. I’m not very 
hot tonight; the power doesn’t go out often in my home, so the fan is
 on steady. And even though the heat can be unbearable, I’d say I’m
 adjusting really well. I still can’t speak French to save my life, but 
I got really lucky here. I’m making the most of it, and even on the
 nights that I get home sick, I remember why I am here and I remember 
that even when times get tough, I am strong enough to make it, I have 
plenty of friends to talk to when I’m uncomfortable, and I have my
 writing.

Thank you Global Citizen Year, I am finding myself every 
single day.

I was so afraid.

Afraid of everything, everyone, and being away from my home, especially. But when I realized that I was coming out of my shell, I was also realizing that I was following my own advice, and I was becoming braver, stronger, and I was changing. When I told Tess that I was afraid to trust people because of my past, or when I laughed with Caroline about the filter between our brains and our mouth, or when I told Peter that I wanted to be friends again, I knew that I had grown exponentially from the time that I landed here. And when I wasn’t sure whether or not I was making an impact on other people, I looked at the tiny envelope on the wall with my name on it, an activity we were assigned in order to thank our friends with notes to them, I saw that it was overflowing.

I can’t explain to you how it made me feel. I can only tell you that leaving the people here will be just as hard as leaving home. Because in a way, this is home. Or it was. I’m excited and confident in myself that Senegal will become a place just as hard to leave as any home I’ve ever felt that I had. And I have a group of people that support and love me and tell me that I’m amazing and will do great things. And I believe that I will.

I believe that I will prove them right.

So goodbye California, goodbye United States. Until we meet again.

This is the farthest away that I have ever been from my home state of Indiana. Indiana, of course, is really not so interesting. We have a great football team ( which I know some would argue about), a pretty successful economy, a beautiful city, Indiana sand dunes, and a lot of corn. Seriously, so much corn. my apartment complex is actually smack dab in the middle of a corn field. But Indianapolis, as boring as it is sometimes, has always been my home, and this adventure I’m about to go on is the greatest challenge I think I have ever voluntarily put myself through. And I’m so excited. I have never been through anything like this in my life and as much as I anticipate it, I can’t even fathom what it will really be like when the plane lands in Dakar, Senegal and I eagerly step off, awaiting my new life and my new place to call home. Because as much as I miss good ol’ corn, nothing in Indiana can prepare or has prepared me for this journey.

All I can say is that I’m glad I came here first, though. Even if this has been the longest, most anticipated week of my life, round of applause for the GCY staff doing the best they can to prepare me for the life I will lead in a completely new atmosphere, while still making room for a little bit of fun among strangers.