Within the Community of the World

Many of my loved ones have continued to travel around the world since our Peace Corps days but I have not. This I hope to remedy soon, but in the mean time I can easily recall being an American living abroad. Surrounded by American Life as I am now, it is easy enough to dismiss things that are not agreeable- such as all of those unfortunate foreign policies enacted by Mr. Bush and his administration, not the least of which is the war in Iraq. In my nice life in Seattle, I am surrounded by do-gooders and choose where I go and what I listen to. NPR fills my ears, I work at a non-profit, I buy nice organic food and for the most part, I am ideologically aligned with my friends and loved ones, including this upcoming election.

Living in a foreign country, a person becomes a symbol of the land they come from. Just like now that I am back for 5+ years, I am a symbol of where I once lived. Not many people know someone who lived in West Africa for 2 years, so what I tell them could be the most they will ever know about The Gambia, a tiny country with no resources. On that same token, those I came to know during my tenure as a Peace Corps volunteer associated most goings on in the US with me, an American living within their little community. It doesn’t matter that this country changed drastically while I was in Africa, or that I did as well. On the day we finished our two months of training and officially swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. I called my family from the hotel telephone to ensure they were safe and told them I was safe as well. Even my brother Mike, surely one of the most sensible men alive, stated “I didn’t know what to think; you’re living in a Muslim country”.

But I was fine. Truly, I was. I was also sheltered from all of that bizarre American flag waving that ensued for months, for which I remain quite thankful. The jubilant and kind Mandinka people gave their condolences to me, telling me they hoped that none of my family members were hurt in 9/11. That was confusing as I am from Idaho and have never even been to New York City. Still, their sentiments were appreciated and I was happy to be in Janjangbureh, a village of 2,000 people on a large island in the middle of the River Gambia.

Prayer calls were called 5 times each day, humid and wet weather gave way to dusty and throat parching days. Speaking the language became easier, my job assignments fell into place and I grew to love my assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer. Sure, I became sick and I sometimes blundered terribly. Sure, there was that time the child next door stole things out of my house (including birth control pills, which he ate) and the elders held him for me, ordering me to beat him (which I did not do). I also displayed some hypervigiliance around radios playing BBC news, wondering when I’d hear the next thing about something happening in my country. I worried about my loved ones in big cities and I worried especially about how our government was handling that attack by asserting the world was against the US, further distancing the US from an understandable place in the world.

One of the trips I aimed to make during my time in Africa was to go to Mali. My good friend Jill and I had a plan to go in April. It was our second year of service and would be our last big trip, as a PCV is not to travel outside of the host country during their last 3 months of service, so that they will finish up work assignments and spend time with the people they’ve lived with. This would be our last hurrah, staying in the mud houses of the Dogon people and spending my 25th birthday in Timbuktu.

I lived about one day’s journey from the capital, coastal city of Banjul. My bag was packed for Mali, I would meet Jill there and off we would go to Mali. I bumped along with the other passengers to the city, used to this journey after about 18 months of living in The Gambia. We were crammed, it was hot, and I listened to my Walkman. I saw a lot of goats, some baboons and many small children who yelled “Toubab!!” (White person) when they saw me. I did my usual routine of making a big show of greeting people around me in the Geli-geli van. They laughed with glee at a very white and very blonde woman happily blurting out greetings in Mandinka. Of course, they knew the family I lived with because everyone knows everyone in the Gambia. By making these connections, I’d likely be safe from anyone bullying for bribes at military check points, where the testosterone driven men with firmly set jaws stare at everyone in the van and especially question the foreigners. Two of my fellow Peace Corps folks had been pulled out of vans and taken in for questioning by the soldiers due to expired identification cards. This I wanted to avoid, especially being a woman. When the soldiers regarded me, I flatly and politely said “Salaam alaikum”, showing my identification card, which for some time was actually expired due to some bureaucratic tie up in DC (thank you, US government, for really looking out for me!). The women sitting around me inevitably said things like “This is Mambinki Jawneh, she lives with Hamadi Jawneh in Janjangbureh and works with Foday Manka”. Both of the men mentioned are long time educators and usually, the soldier would pause, considering the photograph on my id of a round faced, smiling woman and then say “Foday Manka?!” and ask how he is doing, he was his headmaster in secondary school. Phew.

After the long journey to the city, covered in dirt and sweat and my Walkman dangerously low on batteries, I ended up near the Serrakunda car park. Now if you haven’t been to a market in a third world country, it really can’t be described. Just try to imagine as much noise, dirt, smelliness and chaos as you can and that is the Serrakunda market. But within such madness there are many gems, one of them being a Falafel restaurant, where I’d stop to eat before jumping into a city cab to the Peace Corps office.

“Salaam alaikum” I said, entering the restaurant. The Lebanese man working looked at me and returned by mumbling “Maleikum salaam”. He looked slowly from me to the television blaring Al Jazeera news, which was played everywhere. I ordered my food and sat at a table to eat it. Another man entered the room and they spoke in Arabic, I didn’t understand much of that language but the prayers I heard regularly but still love the way it sounds. I barely enjoyed my food. Looking up at the television, it showed bomb after bomb after bomb in a dark night. I don’t know what it said, but I swear the Arabic running from right to left along the bottom of the screen was panicked, or maybe that was me. America had declared war in Iraq. It had been in the works for some time, but there it was, plain as day in those explosions.

“Hey you, are you American?” one of the men asked.

“Yes,” I replied, politely placing my hands in my lap and not looking right at his face, a show of respect for women to men in the Muslim world and something I had difficulties remembering.

The man gestured at the television “Why does your president do this?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I said, feeling scared and angry at the same time. “I’ve lived here for almost 2 years. I didn’t vote for him.”

I remembered one of the strictest rules of Peace Corps volunteer life- do not talk about politics and thought of what a smart rule that is.

The two men softened a bit and asked if I was with the Peace Corps. I told them yes. “I came here because I wanted to be somewhere else and I wanted to do some good things. I live upcountry, in Janjangbureh. I always eat here when I come to the city.”

The men still looked skeptical but had eased up on me a bit. They asked rhetorical questions then “Why does America hate Muslims?”
“I do not hate Muslims.” I replied. I took their macro based question and shaved them down to as micro as possible, just answering for myself. I hoped it would help. I shoved that falafel in my mouth and left, yearning to be in the air-conditioned Peace Corps office where I could read my mail, check my e-mail and talk with some other Americans about what was happening.

I stood along the road with my bag, holding my arm out to flag a taxi. All along this area of the city, little cabs run up and down the road, passengers hop in at various places and pay 3 dalasi to travel where they want, all the way to the beach if they’d like. I’d stop at the Peace Corps office. A car stopped, I went into the cab and greeted the other passengers “Salaam Alaikum”. They returned “Maleikum Salaam”. The radio played the news, all about the war. A woman prayed loudly in Arabic, 2 others loudly conversing in Wolof. “Hey toubab” the driver said “are you American?” I replied yes. They asked again, why was the US doing this? I told them I didn’t know. I assured them I do not hate Muslims. I told them I had been living in Janjangbureh for a long time with the Peace Corps and I was very sad about the war.

Finally in the Peace Corps office, I thankfully stepped into the air conditioning, trying to sigh out all of the questions I just fielded, feeling upset and disconnected from my country of origin but still such a part of it that I had to find solace in this office, where I could be myself completely. I saw Jeremy, our security officer and he said, “I need to talk to you”. I didn’t know what that was all about, wondering if it was about how my work projects didn’t really fall into any of the PC work sectors in the country, something that was confusing for some but was generally regarded as pretty cool because my projects were successful and well accepted in the community. Jeremy reminded me of my brother, we had this nice beer drinking friendship and I knew him well enough that I could tell he was giving me some crappy news.

“You can’t go to Mali,” he said. Jeremy then told me that no volunteers could travel out of the country because of the war. We had to wait to hear what places would be safe to travel to. I don’t remember my response, but I remember I was mad. Jill and I spent our time off, our allotted vacation time, playing chess in my house in Janjangbureh and we heard there were some raids and some unrest in Mali so it is just as well we didn’t go. We didn’t go anywhere and the next time I left the country of The Gambia was to return to the US.

For the remaining days in the city for that particular trip in the city, I fielded many of the same questions: Are you American? Why does you country do this? Why do you hate Muslims? Jill and I decided spending time upcountry was the best idea, to get away from the noise and the questions, the TVs with their news.

This is the life of an American outside of our comfort zone. We are our country’s policies. Your face and your voice represent the actions of your politicians and you are expected to defend them. To say, repeatedly, that you do not understand or agree with your country is disheartening and feels like shunning your family. But this is what many American living abroad have done for the past 8 years. Beyond our tax brackets, our co-payments and our beliefs about the rights of the unborn, we are members of the community of the world. We must return to a place that respects our part in the world, where we can have allies and thoughtfully conduct ourselves.