Pre-Departure

Hello to everyone coming along with me to Senegal! Here is my first blog with all the basic information:

 Where am I going?

Senegal is in West Africa, which is also part of Sub-Saharan Africa because it is below the Sahara Desert (as compared to North Africa). Dakar is the capital and largest city, which is on the coast and contains within it the western most point of the African continent. I will be staying with a host family in Mermoz, which is the name of a neighborhood in Dakar.

Why am I going?

I am going to Senegal on a Fulbright Scholarship. This program, named after the US Senator who proposed creating an exchange program to promote international goodwill in 1946, awards around 2,800 grants for Americans to go abroad each year. Those can be teaching or research grants that can be in more than 140 countries all over the world. They also bring students, teachers and researchers to the US, usually about 5,200 per year, for a total of 8,000 exchange grants per year. There are three different types of grants; the ‘student-scholar’ for those who have just finished their undergraduate degree, or graduate students doing research, the ‘scholars’ who are University faculty members with a PhD doing advanced research or guest lecturing at universities, and English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) who teach English. Many of the ETAs are just finishing their undergraduate career and are doing this kind of as a gap year, and a few are like myself in having just finished a graduate degree in the field of language teaching. Though most of the other Fulbright scholarships are for a shorter amount of time (say, 3 months or so) the ETA contract is for 9-months.

How did I get here?

The application process to get a Fulbright is pretty long. I started my application in early August of 2015, but the University of Delaware usually requires starting in July if you want to have an advisor to help you with your essays. Because I was just after their deadline, they allowed me to have one anyway, which was an invaluable asset as I wrote the two, one-page essays (for ETAs… the application is a bit different for scholars who have to propose a research project). They have applicants write a Personal Statement and a Statement of Grant Purpose. The advisor helps you to make sure you are using each word wisely, as you only have one-page, single-spaced, to convey why you should receive a grant to the specific country you are applying for. The UD deadline for the completed application, including three recommendations and a language evaluation, was September 15^th. A huge shout out goes to those who helped me with recommendations, language evaluations and essay writing: Colin, Donna, Dr. Steinberger, Katharine Kerrane, and, of course, Anna, who probably put almost as many hours into my application as I did!

Couldn't have done it without Anna! <3

 After that was done, the Fulbright committee at UD reviews the application and conducts an interview. During the interview, they asked for more information about why I chose Senegal and not another country, and they gave me suggestions for final touches on my application. They also use the interview to decide whether or not to recommend me to the Fulbright Committee once I turned my final application in on October 15^th. Then the waiting game starts. I didn’t hear anything else until January when I was told that I was a semi-finalist. Whether or not I’d actually been granted the Fulbright I didn’t know until around the 15^th of April. After that, we had orientation at a hotel in Washington DC in mid –June where we were with all the other Fulbrighters (of all kinds) going to Sub-Saharan Africa. They hadn’t confirmed our assignments yet, so we had to wait until July to know where in Senegal we were actually going to be. There are 8 of us ETAs going to Senegal, so 2 in each major city (Dakar, Thies, Saint Louis, and Ziganchor).

What am I doing there?

Because I have a graduate degree in the field, I will actually be teaching at the local teachers college (FASTEF), helping to train those students who want to become English teachers here in Senegal. I will also be working with the RELO (Regional English Language Officer) of the US Embassy to help promote English teaching in the region. What all this actually entails, I’ll find out when I get there!

This blog is for everyone who said they’d like to keep in touch, keep up with what I’m doing, follow my adventures, and live vicariously through me. I hope you’ll all join me on my newest adventure!

A journey can become a sacred thing:
make sure, before you go,
to take the time
to bless your going forth,
to free your heart of ballast
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you toward
the territories of spirit
where you will discover
more of your hidden life,
and the urgencies
that deserve to claim you.

May you travel
in an awakened way,
gathered wisely
into your inner ground;
that you may not waste
the invitations which
wait along the way
to transform you.
May you travel safely,
arrive refreshed,
and live your time away
to its fullest;
return home more enriched,
and free to balance
the gift of days
which call you.

An excerpt from "For the Traveler" ~ John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us