African Observations

Until recently, my contact with James had been limited to a few emails and a handful of pictures since he left for Africa in June. I won't lie--I'm more than a little worried. Strangely enough, my concern has nothing to do with the release that Al Qaeda issued less than a month after his arrival, threatening to kidnap Americans in the part of Burkina Faso where he was living at the time. It was the photos that had me unnerved.

The first James-in-Africa photo I laid eyes on was a shot of James and Julie standing in front of their concrete shack in Karfiguela. At first glance, the photo looks nice enough...palm trees, an ugly but sturdy-looking shelter, and a few bikes.


But after taking a closer look at James, I noticed that he was looking abnormally scrawny. James wasn't exactly built like a linebacker when he left, but he looks especially sickly in this shot. Unsure if I'd just forgotten how small he was when he left, I asked a few others to take a look, and the first response I got was that James looked "30 pounds lighter than when he left." Hmm.

My second, and more alarming, observation was that both bikes are girl's bikes. Given a chance, I'm sure James would come up with some excuse and tell me that the Peace Corps only offers girls bikes, but I have a hard time believing that there are no men's bikes available in a country where bicycles outnumber automobiles by a 10-to-1 ratio. So apparently my brother is riding around a foreign continent on a girl's bike for two years. On it's own, I guess I could overlook that, but the next picture only added to my worries.



In this shot, James appears to be wearing some sort of traditional African pajama outfit that most Americans would probably mistake for a dress. Again, I might be able to forgive this lapse in judgment, but I regret to admit that's not the first time I'd seen James is something so ridiculous. I witnessed this monstrosity first-hand last Christmas:



So my brother is riding around West Africa on a girl's bike, quite possibly wearing a dress. The plot thickens...and my worry increases. And once again, the next photo I stumbled across offered little reason for hope. What could be worse?


That's right, it's a pair of tourists with matching outfits. This is the West African equivalent of the husband-and-wife couples you see standing at the Grand Canyon, wearing matching "I ♥ Grand Canyon" shirts from the local gift shop. I can only hope that the Burkina Fascists look at matching tourist couples with a less judgmental eye than we do here in America. But if National Lampoons European Vacation ever films a sequel in Africa, I have a recommendation for the casting director....

Then, clicking through more photos, I stumbled across this gem:


Going in, James knew the Peace Corps wasn't exactly going to pay top dollar for his efforts. But apparently his financial situation has deteriorated to the point that he's decided his last option is to attempt to launch a modeling career for Oakley's West Africa sunglasses catalog.

Have you ever seen images of Africa in National Geographic or on the Discovery channel? In those pictures and video clips, how many times did you see the poor, hungry Africans wearing sunglasses? Probably not too many...and now you know why. Who wants to look like that skinny foreigner posing barefoot on that rock over there? I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that he's wearing real pants...

The most relieving piece of news I received from James came in the form of a Facebook status update. Once I read this, I felt confident that at least one thing about him wasn't going to change while he's away:

Rather than venture out to the latrine when it was dark and rainy, I may have pooped into a plastic bag....

I can rest easy tonight knowing that some things will always remain the same.