Where in the world

My head is absolutely spinning lately. I can't get my thoughts straight for five minutes. It's like I've gone completely mad. I'm left, I'm right, I'm all over the board in between... I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I feel so overwhelmed by the fact that I'm practically finished with the four lightyears of college that just passed.

I have not stopped thinking for a single day about going back to Senegal. I can't stop imagining those little brown eyes in that classroom which should be mine. I can't stop thinking of Ousseynou and what an amazing friend he is and how I need back to him. I keep seeing myself on the beach,and in the hot sun, and walking through the damn sand that I hated every single day there. I can't stop imagining cooking eggs with Alex in the apartment that we talked so much about having together.

I sent the woman who offered me the job a confirmation that I had accepted. I don't like to be dishonest but she wanted a decision before I was capable of making one. I really want my acceptance to be true. I just want to say that's that and go back. The day after I told her I was coming, though, I got a perfect job offer in China to do the same thing. Contrary to the Senegal job, this one offers me airfare, visa fees, stipend, food allowances, a fully-furnished apartment, and Chinese language and culture lessons. Not to mention the obvious perk of being in China. This is the exact opposite of the life I would be having in Senegal making around $300 a month and being entirely responsible for my living costs, airfare, and somehow working to scrape through my loan repayments... all $28,000 of them.

Plus, I'm getting invitations to friends' weddings, or seeing so many of my friends in at least semi-serious relationships and I'm scared of never finding that myself. When I do a reality check I know that I'm super young and totally don't need to be worried but what's it going to feel like when my best friends have children and I'm still single?

I went to a lecture entitled, "The Many Avenues of Development". I was somewhat dissatisfied to find that the director of the African Studies department (whom I have never met, by the way) and professor of development here at OU seemed practically oblivious to the criticisms of Development work. When I posed the question of what organizations he knew which were not helping to perpetuate the problem of dependency he really found no answer for me. He responded that the organizations work like a business and why would they want all those employees to lose their jobs by not being needed? Well Mr. Walker, I kind of thought that was the point and that's the life that development workers commit themselves to. Why get involved if you are in it for a job and not for the honest betterment of mankind?

What worried me much more than that, though, is when he went in to describing his past graduates who had lived in as many as ten diverse countries before settling into a real career. Does that mean that I am facing the possibility of sacrificing a family for my career? I am utterly in love with what I'm striving to do. I, in fact, cannot even imagine myself doing any other thing in the world. Yet, is it really worth it to sacrifice my own reality for the bleak discovery that the difference I can make in this world is so minute?

Before Senegal I had never wanted to visit the same place twice. At least not until I had stepped foot onto every continent and numerous countries around the globe. Only under those conditions would I allow myself to start visiting old homes. Leipzig never took hold of my heart like Dakar did, though. I loved Leipzig absolutely but it just never touched me the same way. The people never made me see myself in an entirely different way. I never felt so myself in Germany. In Africa I felt at my most genuine.

Now, maybe I should go to China. Take the job that it makes sense to take. Explore a new opportunity. I've never been one to back down from a challenge. Both jobs would be one. Going to China would be a whole new start after just having one in September and coming back to have basically another, and with another running closer with graduation in June. It's practically certain that I will be out of the country again within the next 9 months. But, where in the world will I be?

Everyone else says China, my heart says Senegal, but my brain just cannot decide.