I'm Coming Home!

Only one-month ago, I celebrated my two-year mark in village.  It was a time to reflect on what I’ve seen and done here as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) and as a wandering soul.  Most people who I came here with said “Peace Out, Gambia!” and a handful of people will remain with me here for another year.  In one-month, I will be able to come home!  Peace Corps is helping me to come visit “the home people” before I dive into my third and final year in The Gambia.

My Reading Hammock in My Mom's Cassava Garden

One-year ago, if you mentioned to me “going back to America,” I’d feel anxious, stressed and hesitant.  I couldn’t even fathom leaving this simple, slow life to be thrown back into American culture, where life is fast, work is 9-5 and everyone owns a motor vehicle of some sort (well… mostly).  If you mentioned a grocery store, I would die a little inside.  I was terrified.

Needless to say, I’ve come a long way here and don’t necessarily feel the same way these days.  In fact, all I can think about is Mexican food, micro-breweries, live music and loved ones.  I’m still anxious to come visit, but it is in a more positive way.  I have the jitters.

My Little America - DAKAR, SENEGAL (with more mosques and less cars)

Recently I took a trip to Dakar, Senegal with a few other PCVs.  If you don’t know, it’s one of the most developed cities in Africa, definitely the most developed in West Africa.  I might be exaggerating when I say it felt like “little America;”  it had coffee shops, bars, giant hotels, grocery stores and a mall with a bowling alley in it.  When I heard of the mall, once again I became nervous… For the past two-years, I’ve had to either:
1. Buy fabric at the weekly market and go to the tailor to have clothes made
2. Grab something out of the Peace Corps “free pile”
3. Dig through piles of “donated clothes” sent from Toubabado (white-people land) on the side of the road.
In Dakar, I was window shopping at clothes on hangers and racks, organized by color and size – none of which I could afford, nor did I need it.

Always a Kid

The point is – I didn’t freak out.  I simply acknowledged the experience as different than I currently know, but not unfamiliar.  Before I came here, it was a family outing to go shopping on the weekends; it’s what I grew up doing.  I may have a slightly new perspective on the way of the world since being here, but the past two-years doesn’t rule out all that I knew twenty-three years before coming here.  I’m ready to come home…

Men on the Garden Development Committee - Matching Hats on Training Day!

BUT, only for six-weeks!  I still have plenty of work to do here.  I still have some things I need to learn while I’m here, about myself and about Gambian culture.  The good thing about being able to come home is that I’ll be able to step out of my Peace Corps bubble, reflect on my experiences from the outside of West Africa, and be able to appreciate even more the experience I’ve been given.  When I come back to The Gambia, I’ll know what I want to accomplish with a year left.  My motivation and creative energy will be rejuvenated.  I’ll be filled with enough love from friends and family back home to last another year. 

I’M COMING HOME!

What I get to come back to for another year!

Remy's Inspiration

Salaamaleekum!  As always, Peace Be Upon You

I just wanted to make a quick post about the inspiration one of my friends and co-Peace Corps Volunteers has found in his service.  Like me, he is extending for a third-year of service here in The Gambia.  I have not been able to thoroughly express why I want to stay for another year, but I feel like he hit the nail on the head and I wanted to share his outlook on volunteering.

Enjoy.


[From Remy]

To my fellow third year volunteers,

"Only a crisis --- actual or perceived --- produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around."

-Milton Friedman

 In my time in The Gambia, I have lamented about its people more than I have helped them. I have said many times that these people are lazy and unwilling to change. I have attributed my failures here to both sides lacking in understanding of one another. But, if i had spent half as much time trying to be a better volunteer as I did lamenting, I would have been a hell of a lot more useful in my first two years. I wanted you all, my good friends, to know why I'm staying on for a third year here, and why I believe in our work.

I arrived here and saw nothing but crisis --- some of it actual, some perceived. I saw malnourished children, unequipped hospitals, and schools without order or even chalk --- what I know understand to be 'actual' crisis. Then I saw men sitting under trees all day adding nothing to the progress of their country, families spending more money on cigarettes, sugar and fancy clothes than on vegetables, medical care, small enterprise development or education --- what I now understand to be 'perceived' crisis.

It may be awful to regard such things as 'perceived' crisis, yet it bears truth. It is not the truth because of how I see it, it is the truth because of how they see it. The Gambian people do not identify my 'perceived' crisis to be a crisis at all. Their reasoning is complex in its history, yet very simple in cause:

Where there has been 'actual' crisis --- food shortages, need for medical supplies, renovations of essential facilities, etc. --- foreign aid has time and again been there to keep the country from feeling the actuality of their crisis. If foreign aid remains their safety net, they will never fall. The trickle down and corruption of foreign aid money keeps everyone fed, medicated and educated just enough to let none of the people want to develop those systems for themselves. They perceive no crisis they have never felt one.

This said, let me clarify two points: One, I am against foreign aid --- that is, foreign monetary aid. Second, I am in full support of aid in the form of skill-sharing, capacity building and education. This is Peace Corps' stronghold in the foreign aid world. No one else is working with the people and for the people like us. We bring ideas, we bring solutions --- whether those ideas or solutions are utilized in our time here depends on the Gambian people's understanding of their crisis.

"When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around." We, my friends, lay ideas. We lay them everywhere. That is our service. When these people finally recognize their crisis, we will have left them with their greatest asset: the idea. While all the other foreign aid money dwindles, and the heaping projects of foreign titans fall, only ideas will be left. That is what we do.

Guinea, Gardens & Babies!

Salaamaleekum!  Peace be upon you ALL.

Oh man it’s been too long since I’ve written one of these things. Sorry about that – it’s not easy DEH!  I guess I have some updates, so here goes.

1.      I went to Guinea (Conakry)!  It’s beautiful.  It’s really hard to do it justice through words, but I’ll write just a few and post some pictures.  I went with another Peace Corps Volunteer, my friend Travis.  We didn’t want to travel in a large pack, which made it a very smooth ride with breathtaking views – haven’t seen a place this beautiful since I first laid eyes on the Rocky Mountains.

So the place we went to is called “Doucki”, which is a mountain/valley-town in the Labe Region of the country.  Mountains, water-falls, cliffs, valleys – Jurassic Park looking place.  Every day we were there we hiked an average of 12-15 kilometers, some were smaller (like 5k) and some were past 20k!  Every hike had waterfalls and swimming pools, in which we tore off our clothes and bathed in the rich, West African falls.  We were even able to climb a HUGE waterfall using ladders made by the locals out of tree branches and vines.  Epic.

I was also able to score fabrics that were dyed with Indigo, made out of tree bark in the mountains villages near where we stayed.  I also gathered some coffee beans, learned to roast them and pounded them to a fine powder.  Our hiking guide’s niece helped us learn, so I could bring the trade back to my hut here in The Gambia.  Too bad we don’t grow coffee here L

2.      Gardens, gardens, gardens!  These past few months have been busy, for sure.  First of all, the farming season is over – the rainy season is “parena” (finished in wolof).  This means we are harvesting coos and peanuts now, pounding the coos off the stalk, cracking groundnuts and making fresh (THE FRESHEST) peanut butter for cooking and soaps.

So now, people have time to develop their villages and gardens.  We had a horrible flood a few months back, which made over 200-houses/structures collapse.  After all, our huts are made out of mud-bricks, and are lucky if we have any cement in there.  Both of my moms’ houses collapsed, so this year we will have to work on rebuilding the village.  It will take a lot of time and resources.

However, this is also the time of year to develop gardens, dig wells, and do things that you normally can’t do in the rainy-season.  So, for the rest of my service I am hoping to be able to work on developing gardens in my village and surrounding villages.  I have started working with a few motivated souls to start community gardens in their communities.  This entails writing grants, buying materials, building fences and digging wells.    Hopefully this will take up the next 6-months, which leaves another 8-months to work on holding trainings and teaching people about different garden-practices and techniques.  In the end, all of this gardening will tie into my previous work in the health-education field, but helping people to grow a variety of vegetables and produce more food for their families and villages.  I’m super stoked that my service has evolved.  This is where my passion lies.

3.      So, in case you didn’t do any math in the last paragraph, I said I have over 12-months of service left.  That’s right – I’m extending!  I made the decision about 2-months ago that I will stay another year to continue my Peace Corps experience.  I have had an AMAZING two-years, learned so much, and have seen more than most people will in a lifetime – I’m incredibly lucky.  I have meaningful work, a beautiful village and host family, learned a tribal West African language, and am healthy and happy.  Why not stay!?  I’ve always been good at making homes wherever I go – including adopting people as my family. 

This means I will need to come home and visit “state-side” sometime eh?  I plan on coming to visit early in 2013, probably around April/May – for my golden birthday (25 on the 25^th of May).  I have folks I want to visit, which may involve flying all over the country, but fuccck it’s been a long time.  I want to drinking good beer, see live music, eat good food, surround myself with loved ones and soak up as much of the States as I can in 6-weeks.  I’ll let you guys know more when I myself know more.

4.      I finally got a super-“toma”!  This means a baby was named after me in the village.  I have been waiting my whole service for this moment.  My brother’s wife had a beautiful baby girl this past month.  When I got back from Guinea, we had the naming ceremony (a Muslim tradition), in which the village elders named her Mariama Sowe – my Gambian name.  Everyone in the village asks me how my namesake is doing, calls her ugly and small, and says their baby is better and more beautiful than my toma; this is because they have superstitions about speaking positively about a baby, in fear that it might take sick or die because of evil spirits.  Anyways, I spoil the shit out of this baby and take care of her all of the time when the mom is cooking or on the farm.  I love her already.  “Small Mariama”

So that’s pretty much it.  Who knows when I’ll write another one of these things.  Keep in mind I LOVE SNAIL MAIL and packages.  Packages are expensive sometimes, but even just a letter means a world of difference to me so keep them coming!  All is well here, I’m happy and surrounded by beautiful souls.