Letter to Maggie

This letter from Rob was written in mid-June and arrived nearly one month later in Hawaii...



Greetings from your long-lost brother!! My writing (or lack thereof) has been incredibly appalling as of late. It's funny; they say that you'll have all this free time to read and write letters in the Peace Corps, but I've found I'm just as busy here as I was back in the US. Granted, it’s most likely a function of my wanting to be busy, but still… To be honest, if I didn’t keep myself constantly busy, I would probably lose my mind over here. Besides work, there’s not a whole lot to do for entertainment, so I’ve been pouring myself into my work- not only to keep busy, but because I find it very interesting and satisfying. I also think there’s a lot of potential to improve the lives of the people here- if only you can get them to stop drinking ataya and do something…

Life here has been overall very good; I’ve got a great host family, my village is in a good location with some motivated people and interesting surroundings, I’ve made some really good friends among the Peace Corps volunteers in country, and I’ve learned a TON. In terms of self-awareness and realization of my strengths and weaknesses and personality alone, my experience here has been invaluable. This is not to say I like everything I’ve seen in myself, if anything, I almost feel like I’ve become a less compassionate person – or at least I’ve come to understand the realities of life in most of the world. Life here in the Gambia has given me true perspective, and now the dreamer/optimist in me has been partially replaced by the realist. As you’ve pointed out numerous times, I suppose I stand to gain quite a bit by this change – we’ll see..

I wish I could give you a brief, broad-sweeping picture of my life here, but that would be impossible. The best I can hope for is that you’re reading the blog, which should give you a general idea of what I’ve been up to. To really get a feel for the Gambia, and Africa in general, you’ll have to come visit, which I really hope you’ll do. I think you’d really enjoy learning a whole new way of life, and being truly immersed in a different culture.

The rainy season officially started on the 13th of June with a light shower at night, accompanied by one of the most amazing lightning storms I’ve ever seen: chain lightning arcing across the ground-sky interface, encompassing my whole field of vision. For a brief second, it became almost daylight, then total darkness. Very cool. I stood out in the rain until well past midnight, watching the display, only to come inside my house to find my new thatch roof leaking – right over my bed. Luckily it was only a light rain, so I didn’t get too wet, but I’ll need to do some repair work before the real rains come. Unfortunately, the rains brought the humidity with them, so not only is it 105-110 degrees during the day, but the air is almost dripping with moisture. I am literally covered in my own sweat from when I wake up till sunset. Granted, I’ve discovered my tolerance for heat is rather lacking, (my body is much better adapted to cold weather – I belong in the mountains), but it really fucking sucks on some days. When the rains finally do become consistent, it’ll cool down – or so they say – but the past month has been pretty heinous. Suffice it to say that you do NOT want to come here from April to October. I have dreams of cold beer, mountain streams, powder days at Alta, wool hats, and the crisp air of fall… I can’t even bring myself to look at the Powder Magazine I have in my house. I think my next destination in the journey of life will be Alaska, New Zealand, Greenland, or Antarctica. And now that this wonderful thing called Global Warming is screwing everything up, I think the lowest latitude location I would even consider buying land at lies somewhere around Montana! Okay, the heat isn’t all that bad here, I can go swimming in the river on really hot days, and taking 2-3 bucket baths a day helps a lot, but some days it’s all I can think about.

The drama in my personal life thus far is enough to fill a small book, but I’ll give you a quick rundown, since it’s pretty entertaining and rather amusing. It all started after Christmas when Sharon and I began seriously dating. Now, this was my first mistake: serious relationships and Peace Corps service in West Africa go together about as well as a hangover and a 6 hour bush taxi ride. Being that there isn’t really a good place to meet up in Kombo, and the fact that I was officially on 3 month challenge, (not allowed to leave site) we wanted to meet up in our respective villages. Now, in this culture, it’s highly inappropriate for a man and a woman to sleep in the same house together if they are not married. Naturally, this was going to present a problem when she came to visit. So, I decided to tell my village that she was my wife. Unfortunately, I had already told the village a month prior that I wasn’t married, and in fact, did not want a wife for the time being. However, the cultural expectation here is that a man of my age would have a wife, so for me to come back from Kombo one day and tell my family that I was married, wasn’t a problem at all. The whole thing started out as a one small lie, but it kept growing and growing: they asked about the ceremony, where it was, (I said it was in a church in Fajara – praying that there was really a church there!) what we ate, and all about how we met, even going so far as to tell them that both our parents approved the marriage. Keep in mind that all this effort was just to have her come visit me in village. When she finally did come, several weeks later, it was absurd. There was lots of screaming, dancing, drumming on pots and pans, and a never-ending string of people coming to see the Toubab’s wife! All we wanted was to be left alone, but that would have been culturally inappropriate, so we walked through the whole village, greeting all the compounds. And whenever we were in the house hanging out, a small boy or girl would invariably come by, or my family would ask us to come out and chat. After about 5 days, she left and returned back to site. This spawned another endless series of questions that continues to this day: “where is your wife?” “where’s your baby?” “is your wife pregnant yet?” And when I would say no, they would look at me with a very confused expression and ask “why not?” I told them we weren’t ready yet, and they just shook their heads in disbelief.

Now, this would present nothing more than a minor annoyance in my daily life if we hadn’t broken up about 3 weeks ago. I have to make up stories about why she’s not here with me. This could be something I could easily deal with, but I’ve kinda started dating another Peace Corps volunteer… As you can imagine, if she came to visit and my whole village was asking where my wife was, it probably wouldn’t go over too well with her, not to mention the cultural taboos that I would be breaking! I seriously thought about telling my village that she died, but then I’d have to go into mourning and all that, not to mention that she’s coming next month for mail run. Problematic either way. I finally settled on the divorce option – my village already thinks I’m crazy, so they’ll chalk up my rapid marriage and divorce as just another crazy Toubab thing. Nonetheless, I was still very nervous about telling yet another lie, especially to the headmaster and teachers at the school, who are educated and worldly enough to know something was up. So, 2 days ago, I very nervously told the headmaster the whole story – that she wasn’t my wife, and why I had lied to everyone (in the interest of cultural sensitivity). He took the news amazingly well, and suggested I should simply say that we were too busy to see each other. Hesitatingly, I then told him about my desire to possibly have another girl come visit. He laughed, said he understood, then we discussed all sorts of stories I could weave about why we were divorced!! He suggested saying either our parents or the Peace Corps didn’t approve of the marriage, saying it was just too difficult to be together here. I’m going to Kombo in a couple weeks, and when I come back I’ll tell my family that we divorced. I’m not sure what excuse to use yet, but I have lots of time. And then, when and if Beth decides to visit, I’ll simply say that she is only my friend. Something I should have done if the first place. I no longer care what the village thinks of my actions- part of why I’m here is to educate Gambians about American culture, and dating is part of that. Ah, drama, can’t even escape it in a small village in West Africa.

Despite the oppressive heat and drama, life continues to go well. I’ve been helping Lamin, my host father, to prepare his fields for planting when the real rains finally come. I brought back a bunch of fruit tree seedlings from Kombo to plant in my garden, backyard, and around the compound, so we’ve been busy digging transplant holes, constructing tree guards for the seedlings, and transplanting all of the trees. The only fruit trees my family has are mangos, which all fruit at the same time, producing a bunch of mangos for a month, then nothing for the rest of the year. I’ve planted a jackfruit, 3 avocados, 2 Indian blackberry, 1 almond, and 4 citrus trees. Once they are all producing fruit, my family should be able to eat fruit year round. Another project I have planned for the rainy season is to work with Lamin and a few other farmers to introduce the “three sisters” method of agriculture that the Native Americans have been practicing for thousands of years. Instead of planting only rows of corn in a field, one plants a climbing pole bean next to the corn stalks, which then climb up the corn stalks, and provides much needed nitrogen to the corn; then you plant squash between the rows of corn, which spreads across the ground with its long vines, blocking out weeds and retaining soil moisture. Thus, the symbiotic relationship benefits all three crops, and the farmer will not only have increased yield for each crop, but will produce 3 times as much food on the same amount of land. Alright, that’s enough geeking out over work for one letter- you can see the other projects for yourself when you come!

Okay, I’m running out of room… remember, as long as you can sit back and say, with great satisfaction, “life is good!” then you are happy, and in the end that’s all that matters. Your happiness will be sure to rub off on other people, and in your own small way, make their lives that much better.