Timshel en Afrique: Learning How to Ride in a White Landcruiser

There was a time in Mauritania when I was the equivalent of a small African child and would greet the arrival of white landcruisers in town with an excitement typically reserved for presents on Christmas morning.

I remember one day in particular, when some Europeans arrived in my dusty desert outpost of Tidjikja. I was walking back from the clinic when a landcruiser glided by, and I caught a flash of white skin in the cool, air-conditioned interior. At that moment, it took everything I had in me not to yell “Nasraniya” and chase after the car with the same awestruck wonder that most Mauritanian children did. Instead, I picked up my jaw, which was hanging somewhere by my feet, adjusted my veil, and hurried home to share the news with the other volunteers.

As if it weren’t already evident from the above story, white landcruisers hold an iconic status in the minds of most Peace Corps Volunteers. While the sentiments attached to these vehicles may shift depending on country of service, the gist is usually the same – white landcruisers represent the outside world and a level of comfort not usually known to Peace Corps volunteers who casually throw around phrases like, “poo hand.”

In Mauritania, I unequivocally greeted their arrival with joy as their presence could only mean one of two things. Either a Peace Corps car had arrived with several months worth of care packages in tow - a regular Santa Claus on wheels - or adventurous tourists had stopped by en route to the ancient city of Tichit. Either way, it was something new to interrupt the daily doldrums of life and work in Tidjikja.

When I began work in Rwanda, my perspective shifted. In the wake of the 1994 genocide, the country was inundated by international development agencies and NGOs, and each of these organizations brought an accompanying fleet of vehicles with their colorful logos emblazoned on the side. Landcruisers were suddenly everywhere, even in my city of Rwamagana, and the urge to chase after them like a small child quickly vanished. Nor was my sponsoring organization – The ACCESS Project – a stranger to this creature comfort as we conducted daily field visits in our equally iconic white Toyoto Helix.

But somehow, the landcruiser retained an air of elitism in my mind despite their uncommon prevalence in Rwamagana. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer after all and that meant living life as part of my community. When the landcruiser and its occupants sped back towards the capital at the end of each day, I remained to eat tasteless ubugali with my family, play with my neighbor’s kids, and dread my icy cold shower in the morning. In the same vein, anytime I had to get anywhere else for non-work reasons, I crammed into the pea-sized, broke down mini-buses with everyone else and their mother (literally).

Given my perspective of the landcruiser culture heretofore, you can imagine my surprise then (mixed with some modicum of shame) when I crossed over that yawning gulf between Peace Corps Volunteer and development worker while working in Malawi this summer. It produced an odd sense of internal dissonance. Now I’m the one who speeds away from the dusty village in the white landcruiser, back to my friends in the capital, creature comfort food, and entertainment. No longer do I worry about scorpions creeping towards my bed in the middle of the night, as in Mauritania.

Of course, this is all to say that you never really leave Peace Corps. You leave the village, but you never surrender that perspective which enveloped you so completely, enabling you to welcome new and different people into your circle of family and friends and prodding you to not just explore, but to live a different culture. This same perspective is what drove me to learn what little Chichewa I could in the two months I am here and to observe what social norms I know of in Malawi. This, in contrast to certain expats who behave as though they live in Las Vegas and not the capital of one of the poorest countries in Africa.

Another hand me down from Peace Corps - I insist on living as frugally as possible. This standard has led me to rely on the local minibuses and my own two legs for transport while in the capital. These two options don’t strike me as the worst possible, especially when fares are as cheap as they are. But there are obviously some expats who would be very reticent to use local transport.

Case in point - at a party two weeks ago, I happened to meet some guys who invited me to go swimming with them at their country club the day after. I jumped at the opportunity, and, when they asked me where and when they should pick me, I replied that I would just catch the minibus which travels from my neighborhood to theirs. The two guys looked at me incredulously, asked if I really took the minibuses, and then broke into laughter. Suffice to say, I decided not to join them for the swim. Beyond my transportation choices, I must give the impression of being a Peace Corps volunteer in other ways as several other expats have assumed that I am a volunteer. Perhaps it’s the eau-de-poor graduate student that I put on each day?

While integration à la Peace Corps is no longer possible for me in my current position, I remain thankful that I at least recognize this shift in my perspective and am unafraid to live a life as part of a community – taking minibuses or walking, chatting with newspaper vendors, bargaining in the market, and sharing meals with Malawian friends in their homes.

My vacation this past weekend to Lake Malawi further demonstrated this new divide. At one of the lodges, I ran into some Peace Corps volunteers. They wore kitenge (wax print), spoke Chichewa with the local staff, and when they ate their cheese pizzas, you could readily observe how much they savored the food compared with their diets in the village. At the end of the day, we all left Cape Maclear. Tellingly, I packed into my friend’s SUV for the ride back to the capital, and they jumped into the flat bed of a truck, wrapped their faces with kitenge, and prepared for the dusty ride back to the village. We smiled at each other and waved goodbye. It was as if I was riding away in a white landcruiser.