Slightly Famous

This is pretty much everything I own.

So, about three weeks ago, as I was loading this pile of gear into the Land Cruiser to go out and get installed in Salémata, the village where I will live for the next two years, and the driver says "Hey, Adama! I saw you on TV!"

It turns out that RTS, a very popular Senegalese television network, had aired a bit on the Peace Corps and included a short French interview with me from our swearing-in ceremony the week before, and even though there aren't very many TVs in Salémata, it seemed like everyone had seen it. The Peace Corps driver, my host family, the neighbors, my counterparts, the entire Salémata Health Center staff...

It is a singular and mildly surreal thing to spend the same morning moving into a little hut and having a dozen little conversations about how yes, that was me on television last night.