the third thing

I often say that the Peace Corps has given me three things. (This is usually said in a bitter tone because I expected more support and contact and information and training....the list goes on.) But these three things have been amazing:

1. Language. For ten weeks when we arrived here we were given 172 hours of language training. This is about 20 hours a week of pure learning. A part time job of priceless language acquisition, without which, my experience would have lacked an immense richness.

2. Money. It is the Peace Corps' monthly allowance on which I eat, travel and survive. While I may not be making money, at least I am not going into debt living abroad.

3. A social network.

It is this third gift that I have never really written about, but has been absolutely enormous in my Peace Corps experience.

The Mauritania PCVs meet up at each other's sites, ride for endless painful hours together in squished cars and in the backs of trucks. We smuggle alcohol from Senegal across the river and drink Oral Rehydration Salts as a hangover remedy. We insult each other in local languages, read out loud to each other from magazines sent from home, and text each other on our cell phones. At regional houses we talk in the middle of the night when its too hot to sleep, play Scrabble and make fun of each others laundry methods.

We don't have to explain anything because we already understand. We don't have to defend our anti-social or "unintegrated" behavior because we all know we're just trying to stay sane.

In other social scenarios there are destinations like restaurants, parks, bars, parties... walks one can go on, museums one can tour, etc. Here, the destination is nowhere. To leave the high walls of a regional house is to be subjected to taunts of "Toubab!" and the other million unwanted attention actions and words that are thrown at us.

It is with each other that we can forget where we are. And if we happen to remember, we know that we are all here together, and that seems to change everything.