A Memoir of West Africa

It was 1979. I joined the Peace Corps in my mid-twenties and landed in Medina, a remote Muslim village in The Gambia, West Africa. I was determined to become a stronger, sexier, more successful version of myself while heroically saving lives, but when I tried to teach health to the village women, they laughed at my lessons. The man who was supposed to mentor me hit on me. I became so anxious I could barely leave my hut.

Months later, a child I was trying to save died, and I stopped looking at Africa as the stage for my personal transformation. I learned the local language, made friends, and—instead of telling the women to cook with vegetables they didn’t have—started a community garden with them. With the help of Kabir Dem, a charismatic shopkeeper in Medina, the garden flourished—as did my relationship with Roman Kozak, a Polish doctor working in the capital. Just when I thought I’d succeeded in both work and love, cross-cultural conflicts erupted between Roman and me. Doubting our future, I slept with Kabir.

Only when The Gambia erupted into a coup and Roman and I had to run for safety, dodging gunfire while planes circled overhead, did I realize he was the one I trusted with my life. I ended the affair with Kabir; Roman and I got married and moved to the States. In the mid-1990s our cross-cultural conflicts came to a head. As our marriage grew more troubled, I was deluged with dreams telling me I’d left something important behind in The Gambia. I returned to the village, and when I was once again standing with the women in the garden—now a huge patchwork of riotous abundance—I knew what I’d come back to reclaim.

The Mango Garden dramatizes how relationships that reach across racial and religious lines can lead to deep and lasting bonds. It will appeal not only to readers interested in Africa, Islam, multicultural relationships (romantic and otherwise), and the challenge of adapting to a new culture, but also to vicarious adventurers eager to be transported to another world. 

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