Mental Health Update

Well I'm a little over 6 weeks into my service now and I thought I should give y'all, and myself really, a little evaluation of my metal health.  Don't worry it won't be as boring as it sounds.  I'm at the training center in Thies again after just 6 weeks at site and it really is kind of surreal.  The shift from PCT to PCV is huge mentally and being back here is showing me how much happier I am now than I ever was during PST.  Looking back at journal entries and blog posts from those first few months its a little embarrassing how much I was freaking out.  For example when I first got here I was absolutely terrified of leaving the training center to walk around Thies, and now that just seems absurd.  Initially I was willing to get ripped off rather than actually try to bargain because bargaining was uncomfortable.  Yeah now not so much.  In fact now I will argue at length in order to get the price down by just a couple hundred CFA, less than 50 cents. Also I used to just smile when kids called me Toubab or asked me for money.  Now I tell them they’re rude and ask them for money.  The list goes on and on. 

I think the big difference now is that I’m past the giant wall of swearing in and I can actually see what my life is really going to be like.  I have to say starting to plan projects does wonders for increasing one’s perception of self-efficacy.  The little things help too, like not having to live out of a suitcase or being able to cook food for myself if I’m tired of rice and fish.  Those who know me well know that I’m a bit of an old man sometimes, so it’s also been nice not being around so many people and being able to go to sleep when I want. You may think that’s lame, I think it’s amazing.  My hut has become my little cave of restful solitude and I already miss it.

Don’t get me wrong things are definitely challenging, but now they’re challenging with a somewhat visible purpose to life which helps make things more bearable.  Other things are just purely frustrating though like having the Alhum driver blatantly overcharge you by 500CFA.  I knew the appropriate fare and I knew he was ripping me off so I told him so, and then proceeded to argue for a while until I got frustrated and may have insinuated that he was being racist.  There was also the time over thanksgiving where a cola nut seller grabbed my broom, I had just bought a broom, and wouldn’t let go unless I bought 2 kilos.  Yeah I started in French then switched to Seereer and then finished in English because neither of those previous languages got my point across.  It was pretty funny though because when I switched to English he started copying everything I said.  I made him say some pretty unfriendly things about himself.  Ok so maybe my mental health isn’t 100% perfect but the more comfortable I get here the more I can’t stand people being disrespectful to me.  I personally think that making the cola nut man say he was an ugly rude disrespectful stupid man was good for my mental health.  I also like my new tactic for dealing with people who call me Toubab.  I turn around and call them African. I did this to a group of Moto drivers in Kaolack and they loved it.  This is something I never would have imagined doing when I first got to country. I’ve grown so much :-). 

It really does make me happy though looking at how comfortable I’ve become.  It feels cool to be totally fine with walking around a crazy third world city and crack jokes in the local language.  That’s freakin cool!  How many Americans in the entire world do that? Not many and call be arrogant but I’m pretty proud of that.  I’ve certainly come a long way from that first week of wanting to get right back on the plane.  I have a long ways to go for sure, but right now as I take stock on how far I’ve come, I think I’ve done alright.  Those are my musings for the night.  Stay tuned for pictures of Thanksgiving, All Vol, and IST.

Cheers,

Garrison