Once, in the village of Kunkumendy, "Nambia", there came an American Peace Corps Volunteer. She was asked to stay in the chief's compound. But to everyone's surprise, she chose the chief's mud house to his modernly built self-contained apartment earmarked for visitors like her.
Barely a month, what was once a primitive dwelling became a selfie ground for the girls in the village, thanks to the beauty of its newformed scenery, and everything she put in there was green, homemade, locally sourced, just untapped; from the bamboo bed to living room sets, roofing materials, the fencing, to the hammock she placed between the two mango trees, and the wild roses by the house; nothing came from Madison Avenue, nothing from Batimat nor Sunu Keur.
Fast forward, last month, I visited Kunkumendy. From seeing the state of the house, I knew straight away that the Peace Corps Volunteer's gone. No improvements, no maintenance; in fact, the house is so unkempt it's back to being that absolute "shithole" it once was. I was like, see why they think of us the way they do, eh? And unless we dead the indolence, our bare minimum mindedness and satisfaction with mediocrity, unless we explore to innovate, idiots like Donald Trump will always have ground to disparage even the best amongst us.
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