to know thyself, and blah blah blah they grey teeth of a camel

Its kind of rediculous having one of these freshman year philosophical moments when i am gasp 24 {or 26} i hover between these ages.
But honestly, our Peace Corps life is where you will experience it and not just think about it in the white and chalky walls of Gettysburg College. Here where I have moved yet again, not foward but back, I have moved back to Thies for another session of training back with my old family from the beginning and old friends, memories from infantiletude. Here where I stumble over my name, Fatou Khar Sylla or Fatou Senghor or Jaime Menegus. These are not laugable PC platitudes but actual real names and the people who know me by them dont know any other.
What to do when sense of smell is burning plastic bags, sense of touch is sweat running down your back and chest, sense of sight is skinny legged blueish people playing soccer in the sand of the setting sun, sense of hearing is people yelling toubab! toubab! and bonjour! Sense of taste...oh cooking pancakes with my Thies family over a gas stove awakens in me somthing that has been lost for 5 months, enough to awaken memories of my father cursing over a burnt stove and scrambled over easy eggs.
What to do when everything is lost, and the voice of PC platitudes rings in my head, Every volunteer experience is their own, where can I find myself when my friends are gone and my village and my various families, where does the self lie if all senses are stripped and we are left, with an constantly, momentarily adapted self?
A mafe binge to replenish all depleted nutrients, a coffee binge to stay awake in Sereer class, and a car ride where I am not used to the soft, fluid motion of shocks on a car, and I have one thought: to run. I run absurdly fast. I run not knowing when to stop, the sun is setting and I have people I am resonsible for, if not myself.
I stop when I see some camels on the side of the road in a pen. The talibes, {street rats, begger children} laugh at me, but it is a good laugh, and stare, amazed at my amazement of their local animal. The male, slightly darker camel, is persuading the female one, by biting along her neck, her back, and she is refusing with the most convincing display of horrible dinosaur whine and bearing of grey translucent teeth in a hideous mouth. The normally placent camel half grins are replaced by a contortion that brings attention to the rest of its Gods half left over being; potato sack body, bloated horse legs, and leprous giraffish neck.
The woman refuses over and over until, on repeated breaks, the man brings his bite down and nestles his head below the womans extended dipped neck. There they hover, neck spooning, their half glum giddy grins replenished.
I run again when I see this cycle repeated 5 times. Passed by various speeding BMWs with the lights busted out and the paint jobs worn off to a dull grey, spewing black exhaust into my oxygen thirsty nostrils, I pull off into a local field surprisingly devoid of trash, to spend some tile in the bush rain dancing for the setting sun. I stretch and prey, and realise this; the self is no more than the strongest voice that exists at any particular moment in time. Considering this fragility, this sliver of the moon moment in time, all that we can use to bolster the self is each other and our environment, but these are mostly just pretent, because they are transient. Move to know. The self that we have to offer the world is just our own little voice; and if we dont like what it says we can change the people around us or our environment and slowly, our voice will change.
I thought of those honest in our group. And then as I bent to stretch I put my fingers on the ground and both, the right and the left, drew a parallel disign. It figures.