How a Snake Rescued Me from My Hell
How I overcame depression serving in the Peace Corps in Africa
I opened the pot on the counter. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” I asked in my poor French, which should have been better by now.
“Duiker. C’est tres bon, le patron,” said the young lady.
Great, a mini deer.
I closed the lid and settled for a hardboiled egg with hot chili sauce to accompany my Beaufort, my fourth liter of lager for the day.
The beer did not make me happy; instead, it highlighted my disgust towards my situation here in Cameroon, for this resort town for French tourists, for my work — if you call it that — for me and my life.
Holding my beer in this off-license bar while sitting on a beer crate, I looked at calendars of years past, with pictures of happy Cameroonian families realizing that Guinness was good for them.
Duiker. I would love to see a duiker, in fact, I would love to see any fucking animal besides the bushmeat in pots.
Here I was, six months in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in Africa, a place I watched for years on the TV show Wild Kingdom, teaming with life. But not here in Dschang. What life there was became dinner. I hadn’t even seen a snake!
