A New Adventure!

In a few months time I will be writing these blog posts from a new “exotic” location. I am moving to Dakar, Senegal, in August of this year. I have accepted a program management fellowship position for the health sector projects with a international Catholic humanitarian organization. I am really happy with this position and am looking forward to finally going to West Africa. Before graduate school I worked with several projects that were based in Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Benin, but was never able to travel there myself. This job is really the kind that I was looking to find after graduate school so I am overjoyed that things have worked out to allow me to take this next step in my career and life.

I will have a lot of questions about what my new life in Dakar will be like. What will my life be like there? What are the daily temperatures? What is it like to live in a city by the sea? Are there fun places to go for weekend trips away from the city? What “western” products that I might be use to will I find there? What do I need to bring with me? What can I do without? What will office work in Dakar be like? What will my co-workers be like? How frequently will I be traveling out to the project locations in the “bush”? Should I learn Wolof (the local language) so I can speak with people there? How hard is it to learn? Will I pick-up the local French accent? Will I meet other young professional both Senegalese and ex-patriot? Who will my friends be? Will my friends and family in the US and France remember to e-mail me the stories of their daily lives to me? What important events in the lives of those I care for will I be miss by living so far away, weddings, engagements, birthdays, and just those daily joys of seeing a good friend?

So many questions, many of which in reality I know will be answered in time before I leave or while I am there, some that might not really have an answer. I have traveled before, lived away from the US before but that was in France near other family so really just my other home, so moving for a year or maybe more to Africa seems different then all those other experiences. There is a quote that I like a lot by Wendell Barry, it is always what I think of when an new adventure is offered and accepted even if with a bit of fear and trepidation. “Always in the big woods as we leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be along with the feeling of curiosity and excitement in little nagging dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown and it is your first bond with wilderness you are going into.”

I will leave for Dakar in early August after a week of training with other fellows at the end of July in Maryland. I of course have a multitude of things to do between now and then, not the least of which is to finish my thesis and graduate. I turned in a full draft of my thesis to my advisor last week. The final version of my thesis is due in two weeks. The coming weeks are bound to be very busy and a bit stressful but then I will be nearly done. Exams are at the end of April and graduation is May 12! Then will come the packing, good-byes, and all the other preparations that need to be made for a trans-Atlantic move. Then I will be on my way towards a new adventure!