Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite

Mary and Bruce Trimble had been married for only one year when they volunteered for the Peace Corps. So, in 1979, they landed at Senegal's Dakar airport and from there flew onto Gambia where they would be working. After ten weeks of training to learn Gambia's culture and its two languages, Walof from "downriver" and Mandinka from "upriver" where they'd be stationed, Mary and Bruce were in for the experience of a lifetime. Suited to working so very well with the local Gambians, Mary and Bruce learned that people said "konk,konk" when they wished to enter someone's home, that Gambia was a bird-watchers paradise with over 250 identified species, that the village called Half Die got its name from half its population dying, that one doctor served 130,000 people and the children died of malnutrition from being weaned abruptly, and that people who visited your house expected to be fed and even allowed to stay for several days. Cautioned about sharing Western beliefs with the Gambians, but not to expect that Western ways would be adopted, Mary kept statistics for a local Health Clinic while Bruce worked as a mechanic. Mary tells of all this and more as she writes of their Peace Corps experiences.

"Tubob" which means "stranger" is just what Mary and Bruce Trimble were not in their two years spent in Gambia. Mary Trimble writes clearly and quite delightfully of every event that happened in those not so long ago years. She and her husband made many lasting friendships, learned to deal with people as Gambians would, and adapted well to stove-top cooking, drinking only bottled water, and a host of other practical issues such as dealing with poisonous snakes and ants crawling through a bed's mattress. The story is highly readable and all the people in "Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps" come alive, making this memoir a treasure to read. "Tubob" makes it a pleasure to learn of a culture different from what is known.