Introduction

In 1977 at the tender young age of 23 I joined the Peace Corps. I had tried to join when graduated from high school, in 1972. But the recruiter told me that I had to either have a skill or a college degree. I opted for the college degree, got one in Near Eastern Language and Literature, and in 1977 I reapplied and was accepted.

I wanted to go some place where I could practice my Arabic language skills. I originally signed up for a tour in Yemen on the southwestern tip of the Arabian peninsula. That post would not open for another 6 months, and being an impatient and impetuous lad, I couldn't wait. The posts that were open at the time of my acceptance were in S. Korea, where I could teach English, or in West Africa, where I could choose to teach English, do "community development," or select from a host of other interesting sounding jobs.

I chose to go to Senegal in West Africa, and applied for a job doing "community development" in a remote post. I put "community development" in quotes because nobody could explain to me just what it was. The most specific description I ever got was that it involved assessing the needs of a village and then helping them to meet them, whatever THAT meant. After spending more than 2 years at it, I still can't give a more specific definition!

The time I spent in training and later in the small village of Bafata was one of the most memorable times of my life. Standing in my village, surrounded by mud huts and hundreds of miles from anything I had learned to consider "civilization," I often felt like I had walked through some kind of portal into a National Geographic picture. It took some time before I could see beyond the differences between myself and the Africans, and begin to see that there were really far more similarities. The differences were many and obvious, but ultimately mostly superficial. The similarities were less obvious, at least at first, but ultimately more numerous and much more profound.

The stories that follow are a chronicle of some of the experiences I had during that time. After writing many of these, I unearthed a journal that I had kept while in Africa. It has been interesting reading, deciphering my handwriting from a bygone day and laughing at how my memory has sometimes changed the story. Some of the stories that I remember vividly I never wrote down. Others, I had forgotten completely until I read about them. Most I remember fairly well, and usually consistent with what I wrote at the time, at least on the key points.