What Happened to “My” Peace Corps Village?

Paul Guenette

After forty-some years, I returned to the small Senegalese village in the Sahara Desert where I had served as a rural development Peace Corps Volunteer. What a chance to see the village that taught me so much about humanity thriving in a very harsh environment – to visit the people who taught me about sincere generosity amid abject poverty. The amazing changes in health and livelihood that I found were driven by investment and education, built on synergy between Peace Corps and other international support, and a host government trying to get its priorities right.

It was an eight-hour drive to “my” village from the capital, Dakar, thanks to a Millennium Challenge Corporation investment in market roads. Since I left here in the mid-1970s, the village population has grown from 1,200 to 6,000. It is an active commercial center now for the north-eastern region.

The old well is capped and water is piped throughout the village. Women no longer pull it up twenty-five meters by hand, and so they have time for gardens to grow fresh vegetables near each spigot.

Climate-sensitive, rainfed millet and sorghum cultivation is down. Farmers now grow irrigated tons of onions and tomatoes, contributing to the country’s recent production surge. Rice is king, strengthened by sophisticated irrigation from the river and major dams, and trucks carry it on paved roads to the big cities.

Schools have sprung up. Where forty years ago I’d helped build the second classroom, now there are two primary schools, a junior high, and a high school. Village schools mean that girls can be educated. I was interviewed by a high school journalism class!

I lived here when all were mud huts, now…improved homes have electric plugs and lights. I have a fan in my room to help me sleep. I can receive and send emails on my smartphone. And I have a real flush toilet! I slept in my village that night. And I slept well.

That evening, Pulaar Radio told my story of the Peace Corps volunteer who traveled the world for forty years and then returned. The family seated around me listening to the radio under the stars are touched that I came back.

The next morning I received a visit from the first Peace Corps volunteer stationed here since my stay forty years ago. He’d been working on health and nutrition training of village teachers for two years. They incorporate his lessons into their own and hundreds of children are healthier for it. He came by with another young American volunteer, who will replace him here in “our” village. We posed for a photo of American support, past, present, and future. Our “Young Americans” visit is too short. We told our stories to each other and tried to map out next steps for this wonderful place that has dramatically changed our lives. A credit union? A women’s cooperative? School gardens?

This village is special. I saw other nearby villages that remain locked in drought and poverty, untouched by electricity and business. Young people left here but continue to invest in “their” village’s education, health, and business.

I call my wife in Bethesda, Maryland, from the village; the call goes right through. She hears my tales of amazement and joy and says “Honey, that’s sounds so wonderful. There are stories of trips back to Africa that are so disappointing. You should write this story for your GSB classmates.”