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It Took a Village
Villagers in the Congo believe they brought me my daughter 21 years ago. Now I am returning, to give thanks for the prayers and magic that may indeed have brought us Caitlin — and to tell the story of how this one village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo made me who I am today. Join me for this emotional journal back to my Peace Corps village, one that will reveal the final chapters of the memoir I currently am writing — and allow me to make my final farewell to the people of Kamponde.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo — back when it was still known as Zaire — teaching English at a high school in a small village that would come to change my life. At night, I would write by kerosene lantern about life in Kamponde: the weddings and funerals, the gossip and politics; the joys and frustrations of teaching; the attempted diamond bribes by some students, the marinating python dances and the freshly fermented calabashes of palm wine.
I went there as a shy California girl in 1979 and left two years later confident that I could stand on my own.
I wrote about the unrelenting kindness shown a young woman so far from home who really had no idea where she belonged in…
