Peace Corps is the single best thing I’ve done in my life. It sounds cliché but it’s true. Every thought that I have, every decision I make, and every social connection I create is related to my Peace Corps service. It feels strange to even begin to describe those 2 years I spent in The Gambia, West Africa, but I’ll try my best.
Peace Corps was the happiest time of my life. It’s that simple. I had never been as free, as peaceful, as joyous, or as serene as I was in Gambia. What exactly did I like about it so much? I loved feeling like I was not part of the rat race. Not even that I had escaped it or fled from it, but that it didn’t exist. Ethereal dark nights watching the milky way float dreamily in the night sky, lying on the bantaba hearing the lively chatter of my host siblings… In moments like these, how could I feel like only money mattered? Watching newborns being born in the hospital to mothers who cried out for Allah… how could I feel like only my career mattered?
Gambia taught me in 1 month what Harvard-educated scientists took decades to uncover. That the single most powerful force worth living for on the planet is human connection. I felt this deeply everyday when I greeted my host family, when I spoke with strangers on the street, when I shared meals with friends in a massive food bowl where all of our hands searched hungrily.
In the West, you feel like you’re running constantly. You’re sprinting, exhausted and tired, but you don’t know where you’re going. In Gambia, you don’t necessarily know where you’re going, but you realize that you don’t have to be going anywhere. You can just exist.
I hope to relive some of the most beautiful moments of my Peace Corps service on this blog. To preserve my own memories but also to share with the world the exquisite beauty of my favorite country on the planet, The Gambia.
rehmatravels.com 