How Africa has cured my materialism...or not

Toubabadoo (aka The Promised Land) is here, its all around me. Family, authentic Mexican, wool sweaters, microbrew beer, hot showers, bear hugs, petable kittens, spray on salad dressing, Dancing with the Stars, cheezy family movies, real coffee, pretty dresses that show my knees, fried food at the airport, loud music, marathon running brothers, even louder groups of people, pumpkins and hay rides, soy chai lattes, greeting cards that sing television and movie theme songs when you open them, cool fall breezes, reunions with high school friends, being there for a best friend's wedding, warm beds and slippers, organic vegetable chips with a red, white and blue motif - what more could you ask for?

I'm not going to try and pretend that I haven't been dreaming about the above things and many more for a very long time. I have missed the comforts of my life in America and have thought about them a lot in the long hours of unelectrified nights. Being home and having things at my fingertips has been great. Ever since I found out I was coming home, I have been trying to mentally prepare so as not to freak out from culture shock. But the more I thought about not freaking out the more I found myself looking forward to having all these things that I was so used to at one time in my life. Then I would stop myself and think "no, you are PCV for crying out loud! You're supposed to be one with the people and suffering for human kind" and other uber idealistic things that are only really true in promotional videos. The more I really think about it the more I find myself shrinking from the my old super idealistic self. I don't have to suffer to prove that I care about others. I don't have to feel guilty about having more than someone else, as long as I am willing to share a little of what I have. Suffering for no reason doesn't necessarily prove that you are tough and strong, sometimes it just proves that you are a little bit crazy.

A very wise man names Timothy once said that "the love of money is the root of all evil." The key word there is love not money. Money can do very good things. Money buys medicine and schools books, rebuilds roofs that have blown off and provides money for a well that can give an entire village clean drinking water. As long as we use our money for things that matter, it is good. It's when we start worshipping money and thinking that if we just have to have that phone that acts as a computer, music player and DVD all in one when really just a normal phone would do because no one actually watches a movie on a 1.5 inch screen. Instead of buying that overly complicated phone for $200 extra bucks we could just buy the normal one that really meets all our needs, and put the $200 extra to something worth while that will enrich not only our lives but the lives of others as well. I'm as guilty of it is anyone else. I buy things all the time that I don't need or necessarily really want all that much. I've got about 20 pair of shoes and I think about 4 pairs of the exact same pants.

Ever since starting this little endeavor, or just actively saying I was going to do it, I always get looks or comments (not just from people in America, Gambians too) that are filled with a weird combo of pity, compassion and respect for choosing to live this lifestyle and do this work when I could be back in America and making a respectable amount of money. I usually just shrug my shoulders and try and brush it off because these looks and these thoughts make me uncomfortable. The truth is I don't really feel like I deserve it. Now that I have spent a good chunk of time over here, I also think it is unfair to claim that I am suffering at all. It is true that I don't have electricity of running water and that I live in a very poor country, but I don't feel like I am suffering on a day to day basis. I always have enough to eat, am surrounded by kind and funny people that I care about. I eat meals with my family, so I never have to cook or do dishes and my laundry is done by a woman in a neighboring compound who always washes and irons them perfectly and I pay her a good chunk in local terms so she can buy nice things for her kids and send them to school. I watch DVD's in my family's compound, call friends on my mobile and if I want American food I can go into the city and America/Europe awaits - clubs and bars included. All the comforts of the industrialized world are here, in this tiny strip of land on the West African coast. Its just that these things that make life "easy" are expensive and totally out of reach for the average uneducated farmer, which makes up a considerable portion of the population, but totally in reach for me and my fellow expats and an growing section of the population that has gotten an education and our moving out of extreme poverty. But whether Gambians can afford the luxury's of city life of not, literally everyone is aware of what is out there to get and definitely wants to get them. Just because people are in a lower income bracket does not make them less materialistic. They are people like everyone and want nice things for themselves and their loved ones. The powerful marketing campaigns work just as well on them as they do for the rest of us. I regularly see my friends here save money for months so they can buy they or their kids fancy outfits made out of the latest trendy fabric for a big holiday or event. Just like people do in America.

I feel like going back to America during my service has actually helped me a lot. I feel rejuvenated now that I have seen my family and friends and reconnected with them. It has helped me realize that my life here in TG is not really all that far removed from my life in America. Things in America aren't as shocking as I thought they would be just a little weird at times. There are an abundance of choices all around. We can choose from 47 different types of chips, when one type would probably suit us all just fine. But I still totally chose the organic vegetable chips with sea salt that cost about 4 dollars to much. My mom kept loosing me in our gigantic grocery store as I would wonder down the isles, staring in awe at all the different types of food and products. I knew going in that grocery stores are often the biggest encounter with culture shock, but I felt I had to just dive in and get it over with it. And it worked, the second time back wasn't nearly as disorienting. So it's the little things, the things we forget about when we sit in mud huts in the middle of Ramadan and dream about home, that send your brain off on long "what if" tangents. So even though I know in my head that having all these choices is a bit ridiculous, I still like having the choices.

But for the most part being home around people I love isn't shocking or strange, it just feels like home. Like I am home for a weekend visit from DC, instead of home for a couple weeks from half a world, and what feels like half a century, away. People ask me what is like to live over in The Gambia, and most of the time I am at a lost to describe it. Most of the time I just end up shrugging my shoulders and saying "it is a lot like here, just different." That statement neither does justice to the wonderful attributes that Gambians and Gambian communities posses nor does it satisfy the person asking the questions. In fact it is probably infuriating. And in fact, America and Gambia are not the same. It is true that in many ways, they are worlds apart. It is just that sometimes I forget that because I can very easily slip back into my comfortable life style in America, but for right now I am also equally comfortable in my life in The Gambia - and for right now that is home. And coming to grips with Gambia feeling like home and that being my life now doesn't totally freak me out. Which is good. My good friend Carson, in his infinite wisdom, tried to calm my fears a couple days before I left The Gambia to take a trip home to the States for a couple weeks to see family. "Don't worry", he said, "it'll be okay, you are comfortable here and you are comfortable there, it won't be that bad of culture shock." Turns out Carson, The Boy Genius, is right again as usual.

I don't have the answers right now to how to balance my life in the States and my life in The Gambia, and I don't know if I will ever have the answers. All I know is that I feel at home and have family and friends that I love very much in both places. Whether I am in The Gambia or I am in the States I feel like I spend a lot of my time answers questions. (Which is good and what I signed up for, so keep them coming!) Gambians want to know the price of sugar in the US or who takes care of the cows if the US has no Fulas (a nomadic herding tribe), if Americans have jobs or if the government just gives money away and how many cars each person has. Americans want to know what Gambians eat, what the houses look like, where the water comes from and if Gambians can read. Both groups are equally interested in how people marry, how they spend time with friends and what family life is like. I definitely don't have everything figured out and probably never will. But what I do know is that these two groups of people that I love so much are a lot similar then any of them realize. Whether they live in thatched roof mud huts with not electricity or if they live in huge homes when their biggest decision of the day is paper or plastic (really, people the answer should always be canvas :)) - the most important things in their lives are their family and their friends. I don't want to sound too Kumbaya - but it's true.

I think I might have come full circle on this little tangent, which just proves that the topic is infuriatingly complicated and also really personal. Not everyone is going to agree with me, I am not even sure I agree with me all the time. And that is fine, it doesn't make either one of us bad or good - just different. And different is also good, the world would be very boring indeed if we were all the same and all agreed with each other. Everyone finds their path and organizes life as they see fit. I am just grateful for the chance to observe people doing it in very different settings and learn a bit and figure it all out for myself as I go along. And I am also very grateful and thank God more and more that I was lucky enough to be born at the latitude and longitude that I was and that helped enable me to fly home from halfway around the world to be there for my family and see my friends. It was an amazing and very quick two weeks.