On Lucidity

(This was written around 8/31, about two weeks or so after the events described below)

Downtown Bo

Walking back from the internet café the other day I encountered a strange feeling that I've never experienced before. Sure, it has occasionally made an appearance throughout my brief tenure in Sierra Leone, but it was usually fleeting. This day was different. The day was a busy Saturday in which I went into Bo and spent the majority of the day at the internet café. I ended up staying there way longer than I had intended – as I usually do – pursuing the usual fair that I tend to read on the internet. Due to my extended stay at the café, I ended up being the last person there and thus had the long walk home to myself. The majority of the walk was filled with a peculiar mixture of serenity, homesickness, and isolation. I felt otherworldly – as if I didn’t quite belong is Sierra Leone. The stares that “pumoy” typically receive in Bo seemed to have intensified and I felt oddly self-conscious.

A mosque in Kenema

As stated above, this feeling wasn't fleeting – it lasted the majority of the 40 minute walk home and left me largely at a loss for words. I wasn't sure what the reasons were for feeling this way. After thinking about it for a few days I eventually settled on the belief that it was an attempt to reconcile cultural differences heightened by my extended stay on the internet observing American culture followed quickly by being thrown back into Sierra Leone culture as I left the café. Regardless, it left me taken back. Did I belong in Sierra Leone? What can I actually hope to accomplish here? Why did I come? Was it worth eschewing time with my family and friends back home for this? It left me questioning a lot about my service up to that point and in most cases, I didn't have sufficient answers. Instead I reframed my thoughts – I had only been in country for perhaps 5 or so weeks at that point – what did I truly know about Sierra Leone? I hadn't even moved into my site yet and still had a good chunk of PST left to undertake. Despite my inability to come up with answers to all the questions about, I responded to this self-searching with an open ended plea for more time. Time will tell if these things work themselves out and slowly disappear or if these instances come more and more frequently as I progress in my service.

More downtown Bo

EDIT

Thankfully this feeling has largely been non-existent after this anomalous event. It was an important experience though as it served as a poignant reminder to reframe and reassess my situation and the reasons for why I've joined the Peace Corps in the first place – something that I should be doing on a regular basis anyway. I shouldn't need a melange of disparate emotions to trigger this self-reflection. Hopefully as time moves forward, this introspection becomes a bit more second-hand.