End of an Era

When myself and the rest of my stage installed a little over four months ago fear was the overwhelming emotion. Today, as everyone left the center I was surprised by how sad it was. In all likelihood IST was the last time we will all be together and I probably wont see a lot of people until WAIST next year. It's a very weird and at the same time liberating feeling. Now that we're finally done with IST we are free to start project, expected to actually do work, and the

Peace Corps can be split up a lot like college. Four distinct segments. 9 days from now the new Health/ Environmental Education Volunteers will arrive at the Thies training center bewildered and incredulous at themselves for getting into this predicament. As the new fresh meat in Senegal, the Health/ EE PCVs will see my stage as more "seasoned" and by seasoned I just mean really dirty. I can remember looking at PCVs my first couple of days in country and thinking about how dirty they looked. Well, now I'm the dirty/ sweaty one. A very weird point will be in another six months when the volunteers for the new SED stage come because the PCVs I looked up to for counsel and advice will be gone and I will be in their place as someone who is supposed to understand what's happening.

Regardless, in celebration of our graduation from the freshman six months and our move into the sophomore second six, all the SEDers stayed at the center last night to make a celebratory dinner and pay one more visit to the lovely Catholic compound. It was really fun to hang out with just the SED people for the past couple of days, but I'm pretty sure everyone is a little sick of each other and although this morning was bittersweet I'm happy training is done. I feel like I need to sit in my room and actually sort out which projects I really want to do. I have so many ideas and I feel like there are so many possibilities. I just have to figure out which project to jump into.

I hung out at my house for the rest of the day. Attempting to nap as Ahmed knocked my door and called out my name because he wanted to play. I also spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince my sisters of Matt's existence. Now that they know about the trip it's all they can talk about and they seem to be quiet amused that Matt actually exists. They were incredulous that the person I'm meeting is the same person who I have pictures of and who I talk about. I don't really understand where they're coming from, but it's hilarious to them which makes it fairly entertaining to me.

With salad in my tummy I'm going to bed. I need to catch up on a month's worth of sleep!