World Wise Schools program, Letter #1

First Letter to Kris Lynes' grade 3-4 class at Mast Way School in Lee, New Hampshire

October 13, 1997, Monday

Hi!  As you know, I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, West Africa.  I grew up in Lee, N.H.  You should all know my mom - Mrs. Chasteen.  I studied Psychology at Bard College in upstate New York, and then moved to San Francisco.  I lived there for almost 2 years before joining the Peace Corps.  Now, I'm 25 years old.  You should check out my web site (and drop an e-mail to my webmaster - Ulysses - my boyfriend in San Francisco).  Mrs. Lynes can give you the address.

I joined the Peace Corps mostly because it's very important to me to understand the world we live in, and I feel that living in a third-world country can give me that perspective much more than any vacation.  I'm very much here to learn.  In the past, people joined the Peace Corps because they wanted to "save the world".  We've become much more realistic about what we can actually accomplish in terms of helping the development of our host country.  We hope to touch a few lives here, do what we can, and bring our knowledge of the culture home, to educate fellow Americans.  That's why I'm writing to you!

My job here is Public Health and Community Development.  The needs here are very general and basic, such as clean water and sanitary living conditions, which is why I can do this job without a degree in health.  For the first 6 months I must do a "community analysis" - which basically means that I hang out, work on my language skills ((French, Pulaar, and Susu), say hello to everyone, and get to know the community.  It's important not to dive in and tell people "you need this and this".  How would you react if someone - a stranger- walked into your house and started pointing out what was wrong with it . . . such as that your walls need painting? Our approach is more like - we sit around and chat for 6 months, and if our host mentions that the walls need painting, we'll help him paint them.

So, there's a little about me and my job.  You're probably curious about my daily life, here, in an African village.  I'm writing now by the light of a kerosene lamp.  We have no electricity or running water.  Electricity I don't miss (although food spoils quickly), but running water would be nice.  I have 3 large buckets of water to my left, with a few cups nearby for scooping out water.  I'm careful to keep the cups clean, so I don't contaminate the water.  A little boy in the village helps me get my water from the pump, about ¼ mile away.  I can barely lift the large yellow jug, and he carries it all that way on his head!  Today I carried a small bucketful myself, and spilled it all over myself!  I have to treat my water, with bleach, before drinking it.  In Africa, diarrhea is one of  the top killers - often caused by unclean water.  For us, diarrhea is easily cured and just a nuisance.  But here, it can lead to severe dehydration.  It's especially dangerous when the water is not clean, because when you try to rehydrate with dirty water, which causes the diarrhea to continue, the lost fluid can never be replaced fast enough.

Anyway, back to my life here.  I live in a concrete house with a corrugated iron roof and cement floors.  I have 2 rooms - a relative luxury.  I wouldn't mind having a thatched hut instead - the mud walls keep it cool in the hut whereas the concrete houses are like ovens in the heat of the day.  Any enterprising young scientists among you can try to figure out why . . . Since it's about 95 degrees F every day, and humid, coolness is important.  It's night now, and about 80 degrees.  I must be getting used to the weather, because it feels nice and cool.  I'm worried, because everyone tells me "In March, it really gets hot!"

It's about 9:30 p.m. now and I should go to bed - we get up around 6:30 a.m. here, because the mornings are nice and cool . . . and you can't sleep anyway once the roosters wake up . . .

October 20, Monday
Today I went to help a friend do laundry.  At about 9 a.m. we went down to the river with a couple small bags of clothes and some soap.  She threw me a t-shirt and I watched her to see what to do.  First, we wet the shirt and spread it on a rock, and rubbed a bar of soap on both sides.  Then, we scrunched up the clothes, and rubbed them against the rough rock to work in the soap.  The larger pieces of clothes she would pound against the rock, as if she were pounding a lump of pizza dough.  Then we rinsed them in the river and spread them out on the grasses to dry.  A friend and her little girl came with us, and when we were done they washed themselves.  As we worked, several people passed by on their way to the rice and peanut fields, and we talked and laughed a bit.  The situation may sound different and strange to you - washing clothes by a river - but people everywhere are people.  It was a social event, much like going shopping or going to the laundromat for us.  We talk about what has happened during the week, about what we will do.  The environment is different, but it's life as usual.  Sometimes I step back and look and see that my life looks like something out of National Geographic.  But then I have to sweep my floor or feed the cat and it becomes normal life again.

If I can communicate anything to you, it would have to be the fact that you can never really understand something until you live it.  Such as, you may have heard people talking about going to school or having a cavity filled, but until it happened to you, you had little idea what they were really talking about.  Just like you can read about Africa and hear about it from me, but it's hard to truly grasp until you experience it.  So, as I write, keep that in mind.  Remember the gap between hearing about the dentist and actually going there, and try to imagine what it's actually like here.

I must say, I love it here.  It's difficult being so far from home, never speaking English, feeling very misunderstood.  Yet, the people are so friendly and give me so much.  For instance, I wandered around the market yesterday looking for limes.  Three people gave me gifts of one or two limes, but I couldn't find enough, so someone took me by the hand, introduced me to their family, and the man of the family led me through the fields to their lime tree, and picked about 20 limes.  "C'est un cadeau", it's a gift, they said.  It's moments like that, when I get a wonderful warm feeling, that I know why I came here.

I hope you are all well, and I look forward to hearing from you.  Send me all your questions!

Steph