Chronology
It started with a fun idea: record my college friend before she left for the Peace Corps, ask her what she expects, then give her the tape on her return 2+ years later. It grew from there.

We were both graduating from college: I was off to LA to make movies, she was off to Benin. We had to go to a book store so she could show me where this tiny country was. With my lecture cassette recorder I asked her, in a super market aisle, what she expected.

Hanging out in Jen’s village, near Allada.

A year later she came back to California for a half-way visit. For it I borrowed a friend’s fancy DAT and stereo mic–I had little idea how to use either. She put the headsets on and we figured it out together.

Then came a mini-disc recorder, a clip on mic, and a promise: Before she left, I said I would come and visit her in Africa during her second year. After a big job in LA, I took the money and ran. And that’s how I found myself in Africa and having the most painful and wonderful experiences, as yet, of my life.

Ominous view from outside Jen’s house, a tropical storm opened soon after. A shower in the heat.

Lastly, with more audio experience, I met Jen on her way out, when she was done. When we met, she clipped the mic on herself while I asked: How was it?

The way to carry babies: use a pagne (fabric).

The List
The Peace Corps gives volunteers a small booklet when they complete their service–to help them with re-adjusting and potential culture shocks. An actual government publication, it includes a list titled: Symptoms of Chronic Peace Corps Withdrawal. I wanted to stay out of the story as narrator–I’m still not keen on hearing myself speak. It was an exercise in telling a story with only the subject speaking. When I saw the list, I knew I had the frame structure. I had her read it to me, thus allowing, in editing, her

to introduce the main acts: Disease, Dirt, Work, Culture Clashes, and Leaving America/leaving Africa.

Notes on Sources
Sometimes I spliced in sections of tapes that Jen would record and send me from Africa. In response to dust, heat, temperament, and a crappy recorder, the tapes were of poor quality, and often at odd speeds which I sped up on the computer to sound normal. But those are some of the best moments in the piece.

Music
The African experience is incomplete without music. Angelique Kudjo, the female vocalist, is from Benin. She sings in Fon, the local language, and Jen, and her PC friends, can actually make out what she is saying. Most all the other artists are from West Africa. Jen warned me, in one of her tapes, that a really popular song is played to death there. Over and over for months–everywhere. So I thought I would include them… one last time Jen.

Jake in Africa

About Jake Warga

Jake Warga is currently in graduate school for Anthropology…for reasons unknown to him. His careers have included: photographer, feature film focus-puller, traveler, writer and, recently, radio producer. His next? He’s not sure. But hopes to focus on his writing. When not dissentary-struck, limply chasing his friends around with a microphone, Jake can be found surfing the internet while taking breaks to study or watch The Simpsons and pondering what he should do tonight.

Jake’s Other Works on Transom

Support for a broadcast version of this story for “Savvy Traveler” comes from HearingVoices.com.