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I'm Brandon Sneed. I wrote the book The Edge of Legend, I'm a journalist for GQ, ESPN The Magazine, and ESPN.com, and I edit HeyGoodCall.com. 

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Wednesday
Aug042010
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Thoughts from an American in Senegal with the Peace Corps

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David Campbell, 24, is from Wilmington. Right now, he's over in Senegal with the Peace Corps. I wrote this story about him for the Wilmington Star-News, and interviewed him via email earlier last week. Of course, what’s going in the story is only a small portion of all he’s really experiencing over there. He said a lot of great things, and since I couldn’t fit them most of them in the story, I wanted to share the interview here.

Once, soon after arriving, David helped a farmer plant a tree. Then they shook hands, promising to meet in the same spot 15 years later, to share a mango from the tree. A shiver ran down David’s back. “I felt the full weight of that moment in time,” he says.

David’s chasing that shiver. None us really know where those shivers go once they reach the end of our spines. David’s, it seems, raced off into the jungle, down the river, up the mountain, through the bees.

It’s why he risks hippo-filled rivers and endures malaria and runs through swarms of killer bees. 

He keeps a blog about it all at stayinggroundedontherun.blogspot.com. I'd recommend checking it out. 

The interview's after the break. Click the read more link to see it.

Enjoy.

* * * 

How did you get involved with what you're doing now?  What organization are you there with? Why that one? 

I had considered joining the Peace Corps for a number of reasons; a desire to serve, an interest in international affairs, a long-held dream of living an working abroad and a wish to get out and put to practice some of the theories and ideas that I had mulled around for 4 years as an undergraduate.  I was frustrated with the idleness of study, and decided to use the Peace Corps in lieu of a Masters degree as a practical masters, to test my convictions and the conventional wisdom of environmental and social policy.  The founding goal of the Peace Corps was to promote world peace and friendship through direct ambassadorship, and I couldn't imagine a better way to spend two years coming straight out of college.  

Why'd you decide to pursue it?

The foremost reason I joined the Peace Corps was for a chance to serve.  I felt strongly that I needed to give back in some way to account for all the opportunities I had been blessed with in my life.  I had considered many different paths including the armed forces, Teach for America, other AmeriCorps programs and even private organizations, but the Peace Corps was ultimately the best fit.  The Peace Corps is an interesting program because it has a cultural element and a development element, and it gives volunteers the flexibility to create their own projects once they've identified a need.  It blended my passion for international experience with my willingness to serve.  At the same time, I knew that I didn't want to jump straight into the workforce and start piling it away for retirement.  I wanted to LIVE, to explore, to understand the vast world around us a little better and create memories that I would look back upon 30 years down the road and smile.  Ultimately, I knew that if I didn't do it I would regret it in 10 years, and I hope to regret as little as possible from my life.  

Who did you talk to about it?  When was that?

I had several friends join the Peace Corps when I was a junior in college, and it was at that point that I started to seriously consider it as a post-graduation possibility.  I must have talked with a couple dozen former volunteers about their experiences ranging from Eastern Europe to Central and South America to East Africa and decided that it was just the right thing for me.  I felt sure that no matter where I was placed, I would have a rewarding experience.  I always found myself impressed with the quality of former volunteers, and thought that if nothing less I would be among a good group of peers.  

 

When did you get to Senegal?  What people are you there with? Anyone you know from home? Or were they all strangers when this began? 

I arrived in Senegal in late February 2009 with 26 other brand new volunteers, perfect strangers from all corners of the United States.  Though strangers, we all fit the same basic profile: young, fresh out of college, optimistic and idealistic and mostly outgoing.  Some had traveled all their lives, while others arrived in Senegal as their first experience abroad.  I remember spending the first few days sizing up who I should choose to make friends with based on how long I thought they would stick around.  The first two months of Peace Corps service consist of cultural, technical and language training to help ease the transition between western life and that of the third world.  Culture shock is inevitable, and we lost our first volunteer after only 3 days.    

Describe one of the more harrowing experiences of your time there?

I've accrued a handful of harrowing experiences since I arrived here a year and a half ago.  I've suffered through the fevers of malaria in my isolated host village, floated down lazy rivers knowing that hippos could pop up at my side at any moment, bribed my way out of a sticky situation with a crooked official who I thought for sure was going to put me in the tank overnight and have had my fair share of encounters with snakes, including a young cobra we killed just the other day.  My most memorable experience would have to be when I was attacked by killer bees on a mountaintop camping trip with a few friends.  The story is too long to recount here, but the full details are in a blog post: http://stayinggroundedontherun.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html

One of the more rewarding experiences of your time there?

Again, here I've had many a rewarding experience.  Translating for locals receiving emergency cataract operations was extremely rewarding, especially when they regained vision after years of blindness.  Delivering mosquito nets to distant villages where Malaria is a major killer and knowing that they could save lives.  Working with womens groups on gardening techniques, small business opportunities and microfinance.  My main project, working with appropriate technologies and training a team of enterprising young men to build and market them has been very rewarding.  On a separate note I built the hut that I currently live in, and the whole process from start to finish has been incredibly rewarding in a totally different way.  Though perhaps it may seem insignificant, one of my most rewarding experiences was the first tree that I planted with a local farmer in my host village.  The gratitude in his face was so earnest and as I shook his hand and promised to return in 15 years to enjoy a mango from the very tree we were planting, I literally had a shiver run down my spine as I felt the full weight of that moment in time.  

How much longer will you be over there?

My commitment with the Peace Corps runs through April of 2011, leaving me with about 9 months remaining in my service.  I have a lot of work to get done before then, so I am rushing to make sure that my main projects sustain themselves beyond my departure.  A lot of this work includes training local craftsmen to be completely self-sufficient.  There are also more adventures to be had, including a possible paddling trip down the entire length of the Senegal river, the country's northern border, to the Atlantic ocean ~500 miles on homemade rafts.  

When did you start blogging about it?  Why did you do that?  How many people read the blog?

I started writing my blog soon after arriving in Senegal to keep my friends and family updated on the novel things that I was experiencing without having to e-mail on a regular basis.  Previously when I traveled I would keep a written journal of my experiences to help synthesize all that I was seeing and doing, and blogging is a good replacement for that with the bonus of keeping in touch with others.  I don't know exactly how many people follow the blog on a regular basis, but it was intended to be for those in my circle of friends and family.  Occasionally I'll get a note from a prospective volunteer saying that they'd read a few posts and gotten really excited about joining the Peace Corps, and those keep me fired up about writing.  I've even gotten care packages from people I've never met before saying they had read my blog and wanted to send some goodwill my way.  Talk about encouragement to keep writing!  

What does the blog title mean, Staying Grounded on the Run?

The title of my blog represents the challenge of maintaining a life of travel and exploration while still clinging to the bonds of friendship that keep us centered and connected.  One of my friends who shares my passion for travel describes it well as the tension between community/belonging/place and travel/exploration/adventure, which inevitably pull in opposing directions.  Although exciting, the drive to be constantly on the move leads ultimately to detachment, so writing the blog and keeping ties with friends is what helps keeps me grounded.  

What do you miss most about being home? 

Interestingly enough, the longer I'm away from home the less I miss it.  I've become habituated to the incredibly simple way of life here and sometimes forget just how complicated life has become in the US.  For example, I usually eat one of two dishes here for lunch and dinner, a rice plate with vegetables and fish, or a rice dish with a thick peanut sauce.  If I had to go into a restaurant and pick from a menu now it would take me 15 minutes just to decide on a dish.  It only takes watching a movie to remember how stark the contrast is between life here and there.  I recently read the book "Spartina" about a crab fisherman in Rhode Island, and the imagery brought me back to the estuaries around Wilmington in an instant.  I was homesick for a week thinking about oyster roasts, salty water and the beautiful life on the coast.  I also miss strange little things: peanut M&Ms, a staple on my care package wish list; a mocha shake from Port City Java; chocolate chip walnut cookies.  Above all else I miss the good company of close friends.  

What's the contrast, living there as opposed to living here? (This could be a really loaded question, so don't hold back!)

The contrast is in everything, but I have become so desensitized to the differences that occasionally something really strange will happen and I have to shake myself to realize just how odd it might seem to someone back home.  I laugh now as I think about the full extent of the contrast.  Of course the standard of living is on a completely different plane.  Almost everyone lives in large family compounds of huts and rudimentary buildings with tin roofs, and the fact that mice live in the thatch roofs might not seem that strange.  Nothing is ever clean, and the kids are ALWAYS filthy, but it only goes to show how afraid of germs we have become in the States.  

Cars are a sign of great wealth, and most people rely on public transportation to get around. The most common PT vehicle is called a 7-place, essentially a modified station wagon from the early 1980's that will usually break down on several occasions from point A to point B.  

10-15 hour journeys crammed between two obese strangers in the back seat of a station wagon might seem strange to someone in the US, but I no longer think twice about it.  I also haven't had a hot shower for the past year and a half.  Nor used a sit-down toilet(here there is simply a hole in the ground and a place for your feet).  

I eat alternatively with my hand or with a spoon, depending on whose household I'm eating in, but always from a large communal bowl.  At one point in my service I prepared roadkill snake stew for my family in the village because we hadn't eaten meat in so long- it was delicious.  Men can take up to four wives, though you almost never see anything resembling affection or love between men and women here.  I know it's time to get up when the sun rises, and it's pretty much time for bed once the sun sets.  

If anything, living in the third world for a year only teaches you how adaptable and resilient we can be.  You can teach an old dog new tricks, and it only takes the willingness to accept a different way of seeing things.  Our way of life isn't necessarily the best way of life, it's just what we know.  But take the time to intimately know another way of life and you may not want to go back to your own.  

There are still tribes here who practice the same rituals that they did 200 years ago, and they resist the inevitable encroachment of the western world on their secluded villages.  No, they don't have electricity and yes, they still pull water from a well, but they would welcome you into their home at the drop of a hat and feed you before they ate themselves, engage you with a smile whether they know you or not, and invariably want to be your friend.  

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