Interview with Samuel B. Neal, February 19, 2022

Interview Summary

Samuel Neal was a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia with an agro-forestry program from 2003-2005. Sam, a political philosophy major in college, had worked as a chef and in advertising before deciding to apply to the Peace Corps, an interest he had had since high school. He accepted an assignment to The Gambia. In his early 30s, Sam was one of the oldest in his training group of 25 volunteers. Training began in Banjul but, owing to political unrest, continued in small groups in locations outside the capital. Sam’s group learned Mandika and techniques for improving agricultural productivity. His site, Karantaba, is a village on the north bank of the Gambia River, where he lived in a small family compound without running water. One of Sam’s projects was to introduce modern bee-keeping methods, where honey had previously been harvested from wild hives. In his second year, he was selected as a Peace Corps volunteer leader. Sam married a volunteer from his group, and after his return to the U.S. has worked delivering IT services. An important lesson Peace Corps taught him was, as he puts it, “learning to live in the grey.”

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps (U.S.) The Gambia (Country of service) 2003-2005 (date of service) Peace Corps Volunteer job: Agro-Forestry Peace Corps (U.S)—2000-2010 Mandika (Language) Peace Corps volunteer leader Karantaba bee-keeping Gambia River plant grafting information technology (IT) wells rice funeral ferry compound gardens Banjul language training

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