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by Rebecca Perkins '04, Peace Corps volunteer serving in Senegal
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The same was not true for going into the Peace Corps. Before coming to Dartmouth, I had traveled only once. I was determined to make it to Italy during my college years; as it turned out, I studied and worked in Italy, Greece, Austria, and Washington, DC during my time at Dartmouth. As graduation approached, the horizon loomed large, my dreams transformed by those experiences.
So Africa didn't seem so impossible, when my Peace Corps recruiter called me in April 2004. After an interview in February and lots of encouragement from a mentor, I was slowly coming to imagine just how amazing that might be: from a small town in New Hampshire to a small town in Africa. What would my house be like? What would my friends be like? What language would I learn, and what, exactly, would I do?
These are questions I am still answering in my fifteenth month of my Peace Corps service in Western Africa. In Muslim northern Senegal, I am a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer- I teach business in an African language, Wolof. I live with a family, and I eat out of a bowl, sitting on the ground, with my hand. But all of that has blended into the realm of everyday life; into the foreground stride the people I have met here, the small changes I see, the connection I feel to this place, the approaching day when I have to go home.
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In reality, my job is basically holding classes in the high school, in someone's compound, and consulting in informal conversation over tea with women, youth, and entrepreneurs. Most of these people cannot read or write; the literacy rate hovers around 20%, and these are mostly the youth. They are involved in very small businesses- buy and sell bananas or rice, tie-dyed clothing, or small convenience stores that might do $100 of business in a day -- and have no idea how much profit is contained in that. So I gather them up, or I make them start writing things down, and we talk. We talk about America, about why you need to know your costs, what they are going to do for work for the rest of their lives. What their dreams are; what their fears are; how I can help them.
Though my job is somewhat fluid, one thing is for sure- this experience has been amazing. There are people here- both Africans and Americans- that I will know for the rest of my life. My friends and family notice the difference in me in my emails and attitude. I have literally gained a new perspective on everything amazing about America- from across the Atlantic, in a small town on a big continent. Maybe New Hampshire and Africa aren't that far apart after all.
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