There once was prose and style

There is a literary and musical effect produced from repetition of theme, a leitmotif. In The Gambia sometimes PCVs feel as if we are a living through a narrow set of leitmotif streams. This is not to be confused with deja vu, with its vague parries into consciousness, rather these familiar tones strengthen themselves each time the sounds are weaved in and out of the story. This concept is littered throughout my blog in memories from the past and the events of life in West Africa. One I continually return to is keeping my eyes open to the surrounding world, letting new stories and insights peek out of their quiet holes into ones' own reality.

An insight: My new site mates were baffled to hear that I had never seen the rope game that girls play together. The game consists of a long circular piece of cloth (think a long tied together jump rope) being held leg high by two girls, while another skips one foot after the other from one side of the loop to the other. When my site mates asked me about this game I replied that I didn’t think I had ever seen it before in my one year in country. In turns out in fact the next day I was looking for it, I had my eyes open. It dawned on me that I had seen the game countless times, I just never saw it with the eyes I chose to look at the world through.

A story: Sometimes it is just a brief exchange that tells the whole story. A freeze frame of time that is priceless in its simplicity of message. The image here is of an unknown foreigner being chased by bored and persistent boys in the bustling market streets of Brikama. Walking past her in only a few seconds, exchanging a glance lasting only a split second, a glance of common frustration and empathy for the inescapability of the moment. A glance that lasts a split second, we went going about our own ways.

It has been two years since I spent a summer in the northeastern region of Thailand, but many of the images still remain vivid and comparable. The Gambia that is forming as fragment of memory reminds me in many ways of the Thai landscape, but The Gambia of every day existence stands many more miles apart than two continents and an ocean can describe.

Now that the rains have arrived the grass has turned a familiar Thai-rice-field soft neon green that was so characteristic this time of the year in Esan. Mangos are abundant and flourishing in Gambia as they were in Thailand. Of course the mango and sticky rice dessert delicacy of Thailand is sorely missing but as they say, "It's not easy here in The Gambia."

The situations I find myself in are also strikingly similar. Following the lead of the language exchange I did with my colleagues in the Academic Resource Development Centre, I will be spending the next month in The Gambia teaching English to disadvantaged students trying to get into High School. My mind quivers and slips out of focus when I realize the amount of work that lies ahead, but I chose to be teaching, and like I've said previously try to be strong and confident in the places you choose to put yourself in.

Then there are the things that I haven’t gotten over in a year. Things that I might never get over that simply bring me away from comparison to Thailand or anywhere else I’ve been. Non-comparatives like daily harassment in the streets. Non-comparatives like watching people suffer disease because they can’t buy the soap to keep their bodies clean. Non-comparatives like the joy of finally seeing one of the kids see the lines on a page translate into letters. I suppose in the end it’s good that these experiences can’t be directed and poured in any neat bucket of history; they are what make us grow.

I’ve recently been on a kick of reconnecting with some of the interests of mine that have been lying dormant back home. Paying attention yet again to fantastic sound design in movies, laying back and letting music guide my thoughts, or the re-emergence of peanut butter and banana sandwiches in my diet. It’s been great at the one year mark, not only for my sanity, but for reminding me what it’s like to be an American. Forgetting that I’m missing out on 1/3 of the Peace Corps mission.

Of course reconnecting with back home makes me wish I was spending more time writing and reading, admiring those timeless authors of Western myth and history, but my brain is admittedly tired. PCV service is a draining experience where you have to constantly evaluate your surroundings and how you’re handling them. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll still be able to fully enjoy things like a good wheat beer when I return home.