Deja Vu?

I’m at the Brussels Airport waiting on my flight.  The last time I was here, three years ago Sunday, I was headed to Dakar, Senegal with 39 other young, idealistic Peace Corps Trainees.  We were halfway through 24 hours of travel and excited to see our new home for the following few years.  I remember that the hallways and bathrooms at the airport smelled exactly as I remembered them 3 years before when I first went abroad and I was instantly transported back.  Today is much the same: same airport, same interesting mix of French, Flemmish, and English everywhere, and same final destination.  Today, however, I am alone.

Today I set off not as a PC Trainee but as a PC Response Volunteer, and for just 5 months instead of the 27months I was faced with last time I was at the Brussels Airport.  I don’t have the other 39 with me (or any other number as our group shrunk over the two years).  While it’s slightly different, it’s also very, very familiar.  Walking through the airport, being grouped into the flights bound for Africa (and exiting the EU), and watching as I once again become the minority traveler in age, gender, and race.  I pass by the gate for the flight bound for Banjul and actually know where it’s going (when we had a stopover during the first flight, I thought it was Mali or somewhere in the Sahara, oops!).  I sit at the gate for Dakar and recognize some of the telling features of the ethnic groups sitting near me, understand the language being spoken as well as the accent, and admire the dress (especially the tall man in the majestic white boubou with and hot pink roller carry-on).  Dignified old French men and women give way to African “big men”, women in sparkling dresses, and elderly European tourists dressed inappropriately.  I’m comfortable, and yet starting to get nervous as I think about the arrival gate in Dakar.  Someone is supposed to meet me but mistakes with pickups aren’t unknown in PC Senegal history.  It will be fine, Inchallah, even though the only money on me is a 20euro and maybe 1.23 in change.  Hmm

I know where I’m going and yet I don’t know what awaits me.  It’s scary and exciting all at once.  This service will be very different from my first, not the least in the fact that it’s so much shorter and will be urban-based instead of in tiny Ndiomdy.  I don’t know how much freedom I’ll have in my schedule (will I make my friends’ village wedding on Saturday?  I won’t know until Friday night probably) or what my interaction with other PCVs will be like (no longer in Kaolack).  How will things go with Plan?  Will I be able to travel to a few of the areas I never made it to before COSing almost 10months ago?  What will it be like without the members of my Stage (Stage ET) or core members of my support group? 

It’s an adventure and I can’t wait to experience it!

[We are now flying over the Sahara and I can tell through the window that the sun is gathering strength, changing from that which shines in Burgundy on good days (and was covered by the usual clouds in Brussels) and becoming the hot African sun which tortures poor souls in the hot season but controls the flow of life year round.]