J'adore Afrique. How do you summarize two years into one page? When I learned I had secured a place in the Community Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Program with the United States Peace Corps and they called to tell me I would be leaving in September for a French speaking country in West Africa, I screamed with excitement. It was a dream come true.

We, volunteers, all have different reasons for joining. Honestly, most of us are running away from something. A decent majority are sincerely interested in the program they are entering and think the twenty-seven months they spend in service will help to achieve greater success in future endeavors. I fell somewhere in between. Having lived overseas before, I was aching to live once more in a French speaking country. Switzerland was too expensive to do on my own dime and I figured two years working as a health agent would help me to transition into a job in health communications upon my return stateside. Peace Corps West Africa was the perfect solution.

I never imagined how close I would become to a country and customs so foreign from my own. I never imagined how many similarities I would find that would forever endear me to these people.

Each picture in the slide show above has it's own story that would take pages to explain. In the group photo at the beginning of the video, where we all have our tongues sticking out, the white pill is an anti-malaria pill. Some of us took it every day; some of us took it once a week. We all had to take it for the two plus years we were in service. Admitting to not taking the pill meant getting medically separated (i.e. kicked out).

The cat was indeed eaten by my neighbor. The cat's name was Moose and he had already killed most of the mice in my house so I didn't complain too much when I came home and saw his flea collar (thanks mom) lying on the dirt. My neighbor joked about eating him for weeks.

In some of the photos the men are painted or wearing grass hats and feathers and shells. They only dress like this for ceremonies - funerals, coming of age ceremonies, weddings, etc. It's like trying to describe the reason we wear white dresses with wreaths in our hair for first communion or why we invite clowns to birthday parties.

Yes, I sat in the same seat as the driver during several taxi rides. Their purpose is to collect as much money as possible - no matter how loaded down their used vehicle is. When they stop for gas they shake the car to try and fit more inside. David, my now husband, who came to visit me for six weeks after he graduated college, laughed every time. You would think that the concept of liquid automatically filling the space it inhabits would be self-explanatory. And yes, that is a goat tied to the back of the taxi van. His position is preferable to the chickens tied up at your feet for a 6-hour ride.

The other pictures show off the traditional dress, the strange diseases, my sweet Peace Corps issued Trek mountain bike, the beautiful landscape, the wildlife (mainly monkeys and lizards) and the amazing people. Dancing is a big deal in Africa. So is cotton as it is one of the few cash crops.

And yes, Virginia, Timbuktu does exist. Just ask the camel.

The picture with tons of tin roofs, all rusted, was the local market in my regional capital. It was full of riches my village could not afford. Vegetables, for instance.

You get used to eating pounded yams in gumbo sauce. You come to crave it. I lived without water or electricity and slept under a mosquito net unless it was dry season and then I slept under the stars whenever possible. I read more books in two years than I had in the decade previous. I introduced girls’ soccer to my village and tire swings to my neighbors. They taught me about compassion, patience, and true understanding.

Most importantly, I made some really, really good friends - African and American. Friends who would go to the end of the earth for you. Of course, some of them go there voluntarily anyway ( :