"When people ask me now how Africa was my usual response runs along the lines of "good". But that's not really what I want to tell them. I want to say I didn't live in Africa, I lived in Senegal. I want to tell them that my experience wasn't just "good," it was amazing, frightening, frustrating, enlightening, maddening, eye-opening, difficult, incredible, and confusing. I want to tell them that there were days when I wanted nothing more that to get on a plane and go back to the US and there were days when I could picture myself living there for the rest of my life.

I wish I could tell them about the raw realities of life that I witnessed during my internship with ASBEF (Senegalese Association for Familial Well-Being), a non-governmental organization working in community health. ASBEF has several locations throughout the country and the one I interned at was in a town of about 100,000 called Kaolack in the arid Sine-Saloum region. I was warned ahead of time by my host family in the capital about the mosquitoes, oppressive heat, and general dirtiness of the city. I tried to put these thoughts out of my head as I began my trip east, but all turned out to be correct. There were streets piled high with garbage, the ditches by the sides of the road often reeked of sewage, and daytime temperatures soared to over 100° F even though it was the middle of November.

ASBEF was located just a short distance from the main market and consisted of 3 small buildings and a courtyard connected by small concrete paths. Inside the main building, services such as family planning, gynecology, prenatal exams, and general checkups were available. These rooms were always bustling with women in brilliantly colored African outfits, screaming children, piles of medical charts in disarray, and staff desperately trying to meet everyone's needs. The facilities were nowhere near what I was used to seeing in the US. The building was always overcrowded, the equipment was often outdated, and privacy was often hard to come by.

Shortly after beginning my internship at the main location, the scenery began to change a bit when I started to take almost daily trips with one of the nurses to nearby villages. These villages were very much the places many people picture when they think of "Africa": clusters of huts off of remote dirt roads, full of women pounding grain and children curious to catch a glimpse of the foreign visitor. I remember how amazed I was the first time I saw the village health post. It was nothing more than a cement building consisting of two small rooms, one for exams and one for waiting, a dispensary, and a front porch with benches. The furniture inside consisted of two chairs, two tables, a bed, a crib, and an exam table. There was no electricity and no running water. I soon came to discover that every health post in the country was exactly the same, the result of a foreign funded project in the 80s. Contrasted with the care available in the larger cities, this was truly the bare minimum.

Because of our limited visits, our days were much the same from village to village. We would arrive, set up, and begin seeing people almost immediately. A large majority of the visits were prenatal exams, which I eventually learned to give in Wolof (one of the main native languages). Other people came in for general problems such as dizziness or malaria treatment. The patients (almost entirely women) waiting to be seen participated in health education sessions, oftentimes on the subject of family planning. I was struck daily by the amazing strength and patience of the women who sometimes had to sit for an entire day and wait to be seen, after having no doubt already endured a significant wait for our monthly visit. The days were long and sometimes monotonous, but always interesting and fulfilling. I always left feeling I had mastered the language and culture a little more.

It is these people, places, and experiences, along with innumerable others, that I brought back to the US with me. Needless to say, it has given me a different perspective on the world. Reentry is kind of a blur to me now. I know I was happy to see my family and friends and slipped back into my life here fairly easily, but after living abroad and witnessing so many things, you can never quite look at things the same way again. Readjustment was a slow process that is hard to describe. Grocery stores and their huge selections of frivolous items gave me the strong urge to run right back out the door. I was keenly aware of the enormity of everything, from the streets and cars to the people and food. There were a lot of small things that I needed to get used to again - the fast speed of life, seeing the same societal problems that existed in a developing nation exist in a "rich" nation, missing the people you grew to love while abroad, and feeling frustrated that your good friends can't see things through your eyes anymore.

Despite all this, I have never regretted going abroad. I think it is an important experience for everyone to have if they are given the opportunity. It truly forces you to examine yourself, your views in relation to others, and understand the realities faced by most of the world. I think about Senegal almost daily now and miss it often. I think there will always be a little ache in my heart when I think about my time spent there, but it has become an important part of who I am and how I see the world and I would never want to give that up."