For months I begged her not to go, but I could not stop her. Her mind was made up. She is headstrong, intelligent, brave and beautiful. I feared for her safety. I feared for her life. I feared for my life if something happened to her. I watched “The Constant Gardner.” I read “King Leopold’s Ghost.” I saw “Hotel Rwanda” and “The Interpreter.” I read “The Village of Waiting,” written by a Peace Corps volunteer who lived in West Africa and explained to her that she has led a gifted life of private schools, travel and living in Switzerland. I warned her that she did not know what she was in for and there could be trouble; lack of food, lack of health care, loneliness, possibly war and other more serious dangers. She could be raped.

“I could be raped here, Mother,” she let me know.

I knew this was true, for just before my only daughter left me, a friend’s daughter was murdered on an Army base in Georgia. We cried together while standing in line at the airport. Her plane finally took off and I walked numbly to my car and had a mini-breakdown. My heart actually ached for weeks. My blond haired, blue-eyed daughter moved to a village in Togo, West Africa, a third-world country, where she lived for over two years, being the only white person for miles around.

She was off on a new adventure and I adjusted. She wrote letters, started a blog and got a cell phone. A cell phone? Yes! This is a country without running water but they have cell phones! She had been in West Africa less than three months when the man who had ruled over thirty-eight years, Togolese President Eyadema, died. His son immediately became the new president, which was denounced by world leaders and opposition parties as a military coup. I watched the news in horror as over 40,000 men and women literally walked out of Togo to safety before borders into Ghana, Benin and Burkina Faso were sealed and the Lome International Airport was closed. Men and women were being beaten in the streets and in their homes. Cell phones were cut off. She was alone in a country at war, not allowed to leave her village. All Peace Corps volunteers were on lockdown.

I panicked and called Washington DC, “When are you bringing the Peace Corps Volunteers home from Togo?” and was told that decision was being made by the man in charge living in Togo.

I then called Peace Corps Headquarters in Togo and was told adamantly, “At this time we are not evacuating volunteers. We have been in touch with your daughter and she is safe.”

I breathed a little easier, but not much, I assure you. I could only wait and wonder and worry. My phone finally rang five days later.

“Mom?” my daughter’s voice echoed into my ear, “I’m okay, I’m safe,” and I breathed a sigh of relief.

She was lucky enough to have been placed miles away from where all the horror was happening. There had not been an ounce of trouble in her little village because it was near where the president had grown up and people were too fearful to start anything. And so, she stayed. She stayed two more years, living in a hut with no electricity or running water, never regretting it. She grew to love Africa, the land and it’s people. Her landlord slept on her doorstep all that time, keeping her safe. If anyone wanted to harm her, they would have to deal with him first.
She taught healthcare to the locals, started the first girl soccer team, talked other Peace Corps volunteers into doing the same so they could have matches, and helped build wells for water. Every so often she would encounter visitors riding their bikes through the backroads of Africa. One young British man, in particular, saw her playing with her landlord’s children and stopped. One could not miss her long blond hair as being out of place.

“Ah, you’re American,” he spoke to her then, laughed, “Do you think you can save Africa?”

She didn’t hesitate to answer him, “I’m not saving Africa,” she retorted, “It’s saving me.”

And so it did. It saved us all, our entire family, for when you give love, you get love in return. She showed us nothing is greater. I have never been more proud in my life. She did what I never dreamed of doing, nor could ever do. She is home now, but Africa still lives in her heart and in her soul. I know, some day, she will return because for whatever reason, Africa calls out to her and she listens.