Happiness is a Mindset

The title of this blog sounds like a motivational podcast or a self-help book you find on display with bright colors and swirling ink. However cliche, this motto is something I’m forced to remind myself at least ten times a day. 

There is no cookie-cutter handbook for how to adapt in the Peace Corps. Waking up each morning requires completing a series of basic tasks that makes me feel like I can get through the day. If I can drink enough water, attempt to eat enough nutrients, and be active, I am doing okay. A great day involves spending time with my friends in the village, calling my boyfriend or mom or friends back home, or acquiring a cup of instant coffee. 

My brother is a firefighter back home in Seattle, but I now feel like I rival him in putting out metaphorical fires. In the first weeks, every day in The Gambia felt like I was muscling my way through. Each day would inevitably bring a new challenge, or recycle an old one if I was lucky! Ant infestation? Been there, done that. Sprinkle sugar and stomp up and down and sweep hard. Spray the room with toxic chemicals, wait, and sweep again. Cockroaches in the latrine? Fumigate the area with the same toxic bug spray acquired at the toubab (foreigner) shop. There’s a mouse making a home in the rafters? Shed a tear but remember you’ve seen worse in DC and NYC. Stay away from the kid with scabies but don’t forget to be kind and smile. The more you sweat in the 95 degree heat, the better the bucket bath will feel later. 

My typical lunch and dinner, my laundry set up, and my suitcase after the first ant infestation.

Barraged with tidal waves of miniature disasters, I realized I can’t emotionally react to them all. Instead, I’m forced to ask myself what I can do to solve the issue, or at least make it better. Most times, I’ll laugh about the sheer absurdity of some of the problems plaguing me. Only in The Gambia! 

I joined the Peace Corps for professional development reasons and a firm belief in the mission of the agency. When friends and family members waxed philosophically about the person I’d become and the character I’d develop, I honestly shrugged it off. I loved the version of me pre-Peace Corps service and didn’t give much thought to how I would change or who I wanted to become. I didn’t necessarily have anything specific I wanted to change about myself either.

However, if I think more introspectively, a part of me was afraid of how Peace Corps might change me. I feared that by living abroad for a year, I might become disconnected with my life in the US. I worried about not being able to relate to my friends in the same way as I did before service. I was so happy in the US that I worried my absence and new experience would jeopardize all the good I had at home.  

I think this could not be further from the truth. I can feel myself evolving, but this growth is only in positive ways. Every time I put out a little fire, that fire fight is a growing pain of the better version of me that I am becoming.

Take the (second) ant infestation for example. Morning dew obscured the Tuesday sunrise, and I woke early to get ready for language class. In reaching for a hair tie, I suddenly found my hand crawling with ants. I knew I had more lollipops, but had forgotten that in the midst of the first ant infestation, I placed some Dum-Dums in my zipped hair tie bag. It was 6:45 in the morning, and I had just stuck my hand directly into a bag of ants. EW!

After a moment of initial disgust, I thought to myself, okay, you’ve been here before. Take the bag outside, shake it out, and leave it in direct sunlight. At 6:48, I laughed that I was the Dum-Dum now, and I continued getting ready for the rest of the day. 

Please note that I hate ants and bugs of any kind. I will tolerate a lady bug or a butterfly, but I am disgusted by all other things that crawl, slither, or scurry. In the US, if I stuck my hand in a bag of ants, I would have screamed, felt so violated, and maybe even cried. If there was a spider in my room, I would have stood paralyzed and called for my dad or boyfriend to come get it out. 

The moral of this story is not that I am becoming accustomed to bugs. This is true, but more importantly, I am actively training whatever the “positivity muscle” in my brain is. Every time I don’t allow one of these little fires to get to me, this muscle is strengthened. I already feel a controlled, rational, and optimistic reaction becoming muscle memory. Out of survival, because I simply don’t have the energy to expend allowing myself to be a drama queen at every small thing, but also out of choice. I can choose what gets to me and what doesn’t. In no way is this a novel thought, but I’ve never actively practiced this skill so much as I do here in The Gambia. 

Subtly, there are other less in-your-face issues, say slow burns, that I recognize but can’t entirely combat. During this training period, all of my food is entirely dependent on what my host family prepares for me. My meals are often 90% rice and 9% sauce and 1% vegetable. Most days, I will get one bitter tomato as my vegetable at lunch and dinner. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a slice of sweet potato, cassava, and/or eggplant. I know that I’m not getting enough Vitamin A, protein, Iron, you name it, but I religiously take my multivitamins, iron, probiotic, and I try to drink an Athletic Greens packet or some protein powder daily. Whenever I think about these issues, I think about being back in the US and how all I want is to create my best, healthiest, dream life when I’m back in the US. 

Being surrounded by scarcity, at least of what I’m familiar with, only makes me more grateful for what I have. We live in a country where I can easily be healthy: go to workout classes, take my vitamins, choose from a wide selection of fruits and vegetables, prepare balanced meals, drink plenty of water from the tap, maintain a clean space, take care of my skin, take care of my body, and take care of my mind! I keep day dreaming about the intentionality I want to carry with me once I’m back in the US. What a privilege it is to be able to be your healthiest and best self. 

I only feel overwhelming grateful for what we have and what we can access. I live in a country right now where if one of us Peace Corps Volunteers has a medical emergency, we would get evacuated to Morocco or France. The capacity of most major health clinics in the entire country is the same as that of a neighborhood clinic in the US. The school in our village doesn’t have electricity or water, and the closest major clinic nearby doesn’t have functioning bathrooms.  So no, I won’t come back to the US as this returned Peace Corps hippie with a “down-with-the-system,” anti-capitalist/consumerist mentality, whatever it might be. Give me the Pilates membership, regular doctor’s check-ups, dentist appointments, vitamins and supplements galore, green smoothies, KALE, and my skin care routine. I’m lucky to be in this body, in this life. Being able to take care of yourself is a luxury! 

Embracing the challenges of this experience only enriches my time here. I love this country and its people, and I’m trying to be as present as I can be because I know that my time here really is once in a lifetime. At the same time, I keep daydreaming about the life I want to create in the US when I’m home. There’s a lot to be excited about! 

Happy things: me and Mikaela, a health mural I liked, and Maria quite literally feeding the village with arepas.