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Published: October 18th 2010
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Savanah
Ya thats it... it looks cool but it doesnt really change much. Dear Family and Friends
So for this last week I have been struggling to steer myself to some kind of purposeful voluntary work here in St. Louis. I am slowly recognizing people and making some friends here. I have met a bunch of fellow expats who are working for the Project-Abroad, which is interesting topic in itself. This may become a tangent that I will expand upon later when I have time, or rather I have run out of fun news bits to tell and feeling like filling cyberspace with my ramblings.
During this last week or soI have had a rollercoaster of emotions. I have gone from moments of contentment to sheer panic as I attempt to throttle the frothing manic desire to call my airlines and rebook the next flight to bring me back to the safe confines of home. Yet these episodes eventually leave me. Not that I have resolved any of the inherent problems stemming to my catatonic relapse of sanity, rather the human mind and psyche that I have been blessed/cursed with tends to just endure it all. The water drawn from the well of stubbornness/stupidity is coming up less and less as the
time goes on. I am thinking that my once thought of limitless courage does have a buttom.
You see when you are idle, this idleness propagates more idleness like an uncontrolled population of bunnies that procreate at an almost exponetial rate. The act of replication reinforces more, so it becomes a viscious double negative(positive for the rabbit population) system that I am trapt in. The population growth through rampant breeding only stops when the population has reached an unsustainable level and then there is collapse. This is his how my inactivity operates. Here I do, or rather the less I do, reinforces the continuation of that (in)activity. My reading, which I would classify as a escapist behavior, fails to block out the problems and like most addictions is abused and goes through periods of binges.
Fortunately for me I am derailed from my distination of self-destruction, my carefully built up momentum of inactivity has been spoiled. Jeorie asked me the other day if I would like to go help on a farm for a day… At first I was hesitant, this means change, change is bad! Than another rational part of my brain kicked in and saw this
as an opportunity to do well SOMETHING, as opposed to the monotony of nothing and wallowing in my self pitty and dispair. Like an eager exhibitionist I discarded my clothes of idleness for the more natural attire.
So, this was a one day deal, and if I stay in St. Louis, I will work on the farm with Jeorie every Friday, which will be nice I have to say, to get my hands dirty every once and a while. So the farm is more than just a simply grow shit for money one. It is a state run farm where Jeorie’s friend futilely attempts to make order out of the chaos that is the Senegalese bureaucracy. The farm’s proprietor is named Nicoli, (ok well that’s how his name is pronounced) and he is a full on veterinarian and wants to experiment with breeds and crops to feed animals to increase Senegal’s productivity.
Thus last Fridaym me, Jeorie, and another fellow from St. Louis drove out to this farm, about 20 min drive, to go help in any way we can. The help was mostly watering trees and weeding, both of which was fairly back breaking, blister inducing work.
As you can see from the pictures, which I hope give you a good idea what the countryside looks like is that things are pretty dry.
Thus this pretty much sums up my second week in Africa… As some of you may have caught in the subtertuge I may to stay in St. Louis for the duration of my time here. I have been exploring other places, but alas, like St. Louis it takes time to hear back from people. At the moment I am looking into working with street beggars in St. Louis. I will hopefully be able to give you guys another update on this particular saga as it has already been fairly eventfull.
The adventure is ongoing and continues. Even the lack of activity, continueing existential crisis, and overall time squandered time avoiding the issues in my life still I suppose teach me something and contribute to the over all experience of volunteering in Africa.
Hope all is you guys.
Love
Jan
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Erik Lundholm
non-member comment
HILARIOUS !
Dear Jan, your writing, in style, language and reflections on life, yours and that of the Senegalese, is among the very best I've ever read on 'travelblog.org', which I have followed for years, thousands of entries. Serious, lucid, witty and plain, it beats what Nobel Price winners are awarded for in my country. Carry on!