By purchasing a copy of this book, and without doing anything more, you have done something good. For every copy sold, a contribution will be made to help the people of the Central African Republic (C.A.R.), a place that has been described as one of the poorest nations in the world. It is also the setting for my story.  Two organizations will benefit. The first is Water for Good (www.waterforgood.org), which is an American nonprofit that digs water wells throughout the C.A.R. to provide whole villages with something most Americans take for granted – clean drinking water. The second organization with which I’d like to share my profits is the World Wildlife Fund (www.worldwildlife.org), an international conservation organization that established a park and reserve in the southwestern corner of the C.A.R. to protect forest wildlife like elephants, gorillas, bongo, and chimpanzees.

I joined Peace Corps right out of college. I was twenty-one, had a bachelor’s degree in marine biology from the University of Miami, and I’d studied French since the seventh grade. I wasn’t sure what was next. Jacques Cousteau had already cornered the market on French-speaking marine biologists, so I signed up for a two-year stint to teach Central African farmers how to grow fish in hand-dug ponds. When you look back on your life, you can identify points of significance. It might be something bad like the death of a parent. It might be something good like meeting your spouse. I’ve had moments like those. Joining Peace Corps was also a life-altering moment for me.

I fell in love with the Central African Republic, the Central African people, and my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who, like me, felt compelled to step out of their comfort zones, live without electricity and running water for a couple of years, and find their next adventure. Someone once told me that a trip wasn’t an adventure until something went wrong, and in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.), the one thing a non-Central African could always count on was that something would go wrong. In my book, The Old Crocodile Man Theory, I mention an acronym, CARL, which stands for Central Africa Rarely Loses:

 “It was usually uttered with a symbolic shrug of the shoulders and a smile of expected resignation. Central Africa lost the lottery when it came to competent, honest leaders, but it always seemed to win big when a foreigner tried to get something accomplished within its borders. It made no sense to argue with the ticket agent at the Bangui airport about being bumped from a flight, even with a confirmed reservation. She wouldn't be swayed since it wasn't confirmed with CARL. It was ludicrous to complain to the police about being constantly hassled at their numerous roadside checkpoints. CARL had put them up, and only CARL could take them down. It was worthless to yell and scream in the bank because orderly lines were ignored by everyone, including the tellers. CARL didn't know about lines. Only those who could push and shove through a growing mob and get close enough to wave a deposit/withdrawal slip under the nose of the teller would accomplish any banking business on that day. Smart bankers got behind CARL and followed his blocks like a halfback running off tackle. People noticed CARL. He was plopped down on the bench next to all non-Central Africans, rumpled, disheveled and spewing out his morning breath as the day started with a cup of too-sweet coffee and greasy beignets. He was in the outhouse handing out the sandpaper-like toilet paper. He was under the mosquito net, drooling on the pillow and stealing the covers through another sleepless night. CARL was omnipresent and those who learned to tolerate his annoying intrusions with a casual shrug of the shoulders and a smile were the ones who left the C.A.R. with fond memories of a beautiful country full of gentle people bearing more than their fair share of life's burdens.”

 When you survive those kinds of challenges in a foreign environment, you form bonds of friendship that outsiders can’t quite comprehend. My Peace Corps friendships continue to flourish forty-plus years later. They are the kinds of friendships that are like a favorite old sweatshirt that is well-worn, and based solely on looks, it should probably be tossed, but it is just too damned comfortable to let it go. We are now spread out around the world, yet we gather every two years at one of our houses for a long weekend to remember what it was like to be twenty-something idealists with our lives in front of us, to laugh again at the same old stories, and to give back to a country that welcomed us with open arms, tested our powers of adaptability, and changed all of our lives. We do the latter by auctioning off items we accumulated during our Peace Corps years – African fabric, ebony carvings, tapestries, butterfly print art, etc. Most of it has been stored in boxes in our attics for years, and most of us long ago outgrew the shirts, pants, and dresses we had made from colorful African fabric and that we wore as a badge of honor. The seller tells a story about the item – how they acquired it, why they purchased it, or if specific memories are connected to the item – and we bid way more than the item is worth because we now make more than the $300/month we made as Peace Corps volunteers, and we know the money is going to support a worthy cause. The nonprofit we chose to support with our poor bidding skills is Water for Good (www.waterforgood.org).    

 I believe in the life-changing work of Water for Good, so I am also sharing some of the proceeds of my novel with them.