Final

Final Report

This report focuses on your observations, reactions, realizations, and insights after completion of your fellowship. It will be shared with board members and future Fellows and used to improve the quality of fellowships. We hope it will help you to continue processing your time in Africa. We encourage you to make additions in the form of personal letters, a collection of anecdotes, photos, etc., and you are encouraged to draw conclusions or highlight observations with additional commentary as well as simply relating events.

Please indicate when information is not to be shared outside of PiAf and rest assured that we will honor your request.

Reports should be submitted via email to [email protected] and [email protected]. The deadline is the last day of the month in which your fellowship ends. (Example: Fiona Fellow finishes work July 10th and returns home to the U.S. on July 16th. Her final report is due July 31st.)

Your Personal Information

Organization: WFP City, Country: Dakar, Senegal

FELLOWSHIP END DATE: 25 June 2012

ANTICIPATED RETURN DATE: 2 July 2012 (flying out of Senegal for a month, but returning to Dakar at end of July)

What do you plan to do next? Please be specific! (e.g., attend Harvard Med, be a barista at Starbucks, teach English in Cameroon, etc.)

Month off in July, working in WFP West Africa Regional Bureau Reports Unit on 2 month contract for August and September

Your Travel and Other Logistical Information

1. How will you travel when you depart your host country? Please be specific in terms of what airlines(s), what cities you will fly to/from, how much your ticket cost (was this travel part of a roundtrip you purchased earlier?) how did you find/purchase your tickets, etc.

I’m flying to the States for a month’s holiday after my fellowship – my ticket cost $1200 roundtrip (DAKAR – JFK) on South African Airways. This is separate from the initial roundtrip ticket that I bought (Nairobi – Dakar). I will use that when I return to Kenya after my WFP consultancy. I found my ticket on Orbitz.

2. Any travel tips to share with future Fellows? I had to change my ticket because my plans changed at the last minute so in retrospect I would have waited to buy my ticket to the States until my plans were more certain. But waiting does also come with the downside that tickets go up in price.

3. Did you experience any health problems during your stay in Africa?

Final

I had trouble in the beginning, mainly stomach issues but nothing serious.

4. Have you utilized the health insurance PiAf or your host organization provided you? Please describe any interactions or experiences—positive or negative—you have had with your health insurance company or policy. Please include the name of the provider in your response.

I did – I had some tests done when I got what I later found out to be food poisoning. The bills amounted to $100 or so. HCCMIS was really great about it all – extremely efficient and I had to change the delivery address of the checks and the person whose name the checks could be made out to because I am not in America. They were very understanding about that.

5. Did you take anti-malarials during your fellowship? If so, what kind and how/where did you acquire them?

No, I did not.

Your Work

6. Please summarize all of the work you did this year as you would on your résumé or CV.

Wrote and edited press releases on WFP activities in West Africa (19 countries); wrote, edited and posted stories onto the WFP website; prepared talking points on WFP’s emergency operations in the Sahel as well as in Côte d'Ivoire/Liberia; edited and compiled quarterly WFP West Africa newsletter; coordinated interviews with WFP staff and press; managed WFP West Africa Twitter account; managed unit and attended weekly senior staff meetings in absence of supervisor; organized press conferences, went on ten-day mission to island of Sao Tome to gather visibility material on WFP activities there, produced stories and photo galleries for WFP website.

7. How would you evaluate your work? What do you feel you were able to contribute? How might you have been more effective?

I think I did a good job this year – my boss often mentions it and I received a consultancy offer from another unit, which I think is testament to my work and attitude. I was a big support in the PI unit, keeping on top of what needed to be done in terms of interviews, press releases, talking points, and management of the website. I’m not sure if this is much more I could have done to be more effective, perhaps read up more on WFP and the region in the first weeks to speed up the learning curve.

8. What accomplishments from your fellowship are you most proud of?

Organizing the two press conferences that we held on the Sahel food crisis, keeping on top of office tasks that needed to be done, keeping the country pages in order of the 19 countries that WFP covers in West Africa, managing the unit by myself (sometimes for as long as 3 weeks) while my supervisor was away, my mission to Sao Tome to collect visibility material, being offered a consultancy with WFP at the end of my fellowship.

9. During PiAf’s Pre-departure Orientation in May 2010, you listed three things you hoped to gain from your experience as a PiAf Fellow. What were they? (To refresh your memory, we have recently emailed these to you.) Did you achieve these goals? How has your fellowship affected other goals you have/will set for the future?

 Produce work that I am proud of / have memorable conversations  To understand what it means to work in communications/the UN  To improve my French a lot Final

Number one is rather general but I certainly had memorable conversations at the office as well as with the new close friends that I have made here, with the Senegalese people I have got to know over the year and during my mission to Sao Tome. Working in the Public Information Unit has been a crash course in communications and the workings of WFP and more generally the UN. Finally, my French could have perhaps been improved more had I been part of a more Francophone friend group rather than the Anglophone one that I found myself in. So, I do feel like I accomplished these goas and by returning to Dakar and the WFP West Africa bureau, I hope I will only continue to advance them.

10. What kind of a person would do well in this fellowship or one like it? Do you have any specific advice for future Fellows who are interested in this position?

I feel that I am quite a different person from the fellow who preceded me so I think that this position would actually suit a wide range of personality types. I would say that interests in Africa, communications, food security (and preferably all three) would guarantee a fruitful year for the future fellows in this position.

Your Reflections

11. What did you find most inspiring about/during your fellowship experience?

I’m not sure if this could be counted as inspiring but I felt honoured to be doing the work that I was doing straight out of college – attending meetings with colleagues who had been in real emergency situations, learning about communications and food security in the best possible place to be doing that.

12. What have you learned about your own values and worldview through living abroad this year?

Princeton in Africa was a return to Africa for me after four years of college in the States. However, the Africa that I experienced this year was in many ways different to the one I grew up in. I was without my family and it was my first time working in Africa rather than just living and going to school there. While this was hard at first, it also made me realize that I can survive here on my own. I have had the chance to speak with and sometimes become friends with the people that I saw from a distance growing up – teachers at the international school, UN workers, etc. I am now one of those people that I watched when I was young!

All to say that the returning experience has been quite surreal and emotional at times, not without its ups and downs. At times, especially at first, I’ve felt that I had made a mistake leaving my college world behind in America (not having a US passport means it’s difficult to go back) but I soon realized just quite how amazing an opportunity this was, how interesting the work has been (Sahel food crisis), the people I have met and I realize how much I have grown. This year has made me stronger as well as more certain and prouder of who I am.

13. Looking back, what does PiAf mean to you? How did this experience affect you? What did you learn or gain from your fellowship? (This is another chance for you to give us good fodder for our marketing materials!) ;)

If you want to pursue a career in international development, I can’t imagine a better place to start than Princeton in Africa. Opportunities have opened up after this year that would not have been possible before. I spent a year doing extremely interesting work, speaking a foreign language and learning about a whole new country and culture. I am truly grateful to PiAf.

14. What will you miss the most once your fellowship has ended?

I am coming back to work in the same office after my fellowship ends so not much is changing for now as I will be still living in Dakar, working with the same people. But for when I leave Dakar, I would certainly miss WFP – the very interesting work. I would also miss the close friends I have made out of the office. In terms of the city, I would miss my Final lovely house, the courtyard, the lighthouse nearby, the French bakeries, the sound of the mosque. All those things that make Dakar the city it is, but that’s all premature thinking for now as I’ll be back soon enough!

15. Are there a number of things in your life that once seemed unusual but now seem normal? Please share a few…

Power and water cuts – while it is difficult to ever become completely used to either of these shortages, you do become better at dealing with them.

Sleeping under a mosquito net – I did this growing up so perhaps it is not that unusual that I now find it normal, but it was certainly a change from my college bed.

The lack of rain – this really struck me. I have never lived in such a dry place before. When I first arrived and used to hear the wind in the trees, I was certain there was rain coming. Now I know, it’s just… wind.

16. What perceptions of Americans/expats have you encountered while in Africa? Are there any common misconceptions?

Senegalese people believe that all expatriates are rich and in comparison with most of the population, this is true - all expatriates are, even PiAfers. But this is something that fellows should be aware of: the concept of being foreign and not wealthy does just not fit. Know that you are seen as such and behave respectfully and sensibly. Another important conception to be aware of is that expat girls are seen as easy. It is important to know of these preconceptions.

17. What misconceptions do Americans/foreigners generally have about the country in which you are living?

People who have not been to Senegal might think that it’s dangerous but it really is not very dangerous at all. There are some pick-pocketings, opportunistic house robberies but there is very little violent crime and for any major city in the world today, that is something to be seriously thankful for.

While it is true that Senegal is a very religious place, it is not really the type of Islam that I was expecting. It is Suffi Islam, so much more mystical than Islam in other places, with lots of African animist influences.

18. If you could go back to the start of your fellowship year and do anything differently, would you? If so, what? What do you know now that you wish you had known at the beginning of your PiAf fellowship?

I would maybe have been more outgoing – if someone had invited me out to something, to always say yes. I think this is important in the beginning when even if you are feeling quite homesick or just not that great, to get out there and make some friends.

And since I did rather struggle at the beginning of my fellowship, I wish I had known that it was all going to be okay, that the power cuts wouldn’t go on forever, I would move into a nicer house, I would make closer friends, that at the end of my year in Dakar I would actually be trying to stay on, not leave!

19. Do you have any specific suggestions for improving your fellowship position or Princeton in Africa fellowships in general?

My fellowship position was great – an excellent introduction to WFP and communications. I think it helped to have had two fellows in the same position before me. The responsibilities of the role were very clear from day one. I can’t really think of how PiAf fellowships could be improved!

20. How do you think Princeton in Africa board members and staff helped you over the year—or could have helped you more? Do you have any specific suggestions for improving interactions with the PiAf office or program representatives?

Final

I really don’t think that the PiAf staff could have been better. Whenever I wrote an email with a question or even just an update, the responses were always fast, thorough and friendly. Even if I didn’t reach out a huge amount to the PiAf office, I absolutely knew that they were there for me. I am appreciative and grateful for this.

21. Any other comments/suggestions to share?