What the Tarot Card Reader Said

May 3, 2011

(I know I posted this briefly for a couple days last week and then took it down...so it's not really a new post. What happened was, I heard about Seyni's death the day after I posted this and didn't want people to miss either post, so I took it down to space things out a bit.)

Dear Friends,

I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to tell you this story. I think part of me felt silly for even believing it or acknowledging what was happening. Now, I almost wish this had been my very first blog post, so that you all could have experience the awe I have felt in watching everything fall into place as it has.

Hearing stories like this one after the fact make them somehow less magical. You might think, when telling this I’ve re-imagined the past to make it conform more neatly to what I was told would happen. Perhaps I stretched a few details or omitted a few inconvenient facts. Especially since, those of you who know me know I am quite the spiritual junky. I believe in fate, clairvoyance, and the like—actually no…I’m always trying to believe in fate, clairvoyance and the like, but I can never quite get there, because even more than I am a spiritual junky, I am a skeptic. As many wonderful stories as I’ve heard about magic in everyday life, I still question them. As many otherworldly things that have happened to me, I still feel like a crazy person for acknowledging them.

So, I’m going to tell you what happened. I’m going to be as truthful as is possible. And, I’m going to let you judge for yourselves.

Here’s what happened:

In April of 2009, a dear friend of mine went to a tarot card reader in Seattle. I’m not sure why she went, but when I saw her next, she was raving about him. Apparently, everything he had told her had been pretty spot-on. He’d even given her a whole play-by-play of what was happening in the next couple years. “You should go see him before you leave for Peace Corps!” she suggested. I always loved stuff like this, especially after such a glowing recommendation, so I decided the next time I was wandering around the Ave. I would go see him.

The “Ave.” is short for University Avenue, and is the main drag of UW’s college town. The whole ten-block stretch is pretty much brick-to-brick coffee shops, restaurants, and trendy boutiques. In spite of the sizable student population and all their parent’s money, a lot of these businesses have a hard time staying afloat. Shops are always coming and going, leaving the place in a constant state of evolution. Unbelievably, one of the few shops that stayed put during my entire tenure at the University of Washington is a store called “Gargoyles.” They sell (almost exclusively) gargoyle statuettes. As you might imagine, in spite of the ridiculous amount of time I’d spent on the Ave. I’d never gone in this particular store. Though, I’d taken every opportunity I could to comment about burgeoning, yet clandestine gargoyle statuette market. Naturally, this is where the tarot card reader worked.

So some bright afternoon I wandered in there and asked to have my tarot cards read. The woman behind the counter disappeared into the back of the shop, saying she’d have to see if “he felt like doing a reading.” No, he did not. “Come back tomorrow,” she said. Well, he’s certainly playing the part, I thought.

Not the next day, but soon after I returned to the shop and asked, again, for a card reading. This time I was shown to a private corner of the store, amidst many a statuette, where a thin, middle-aged guy was type, type, typing away on his laptop. I guess you can’t expect mystics to always be mystical.

Anyway, we began the reading with a short interview. Many a skeptic have accused these “seers” of being nothing more than very observant fakes, deriving what seem like divine conclusions from minute details of a person’s appearance, conduct and speech. So I tried to hold the same posture and give the guy as little detail about my life as possible. I did tell him I was a student and that I was joining the Peace Corps. At that point I didn’t know where I was going yet, but I didn’t tell him I had requested Africa.

I can’t remember too clearly what he said about my past and present, but I do remember thinking it was right on. He said that the academic program I was in suited me and I was doing very well. He said I was happy and that life was going well, except for one dysfunctional relationship. (It was true, I was mid-falling out with a friend.) I asked him how to repair the relationship and he told me to just let it go.

After the past and present, he moved on to the future. This should be easy enough, I thought. He’ll tell me that Peace Corps will be hard at first, but I’ll get used to it, succeed, finish my two years and come back to the States and land my dream job. Nope. Here’s what he said: You will go to a very difficult country like Burkina Faso. He used the words impoverished and worn-torn. At first, you will really like it and do well, but after four months you will lose your footing and never really get it back. You will struggle a great deal with questions of inequity and suffer a lot. Finally, after a year and a half you will leave the first place and go to someplace new where you will find the work you will do for the rest of your life.

This shocked me—mostly because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, that Peace Corps would be the adventure of my life. So, let’s break it all down: I wouldn’t use the word “war-torn” to describe Niger, but it is impoverished and very similar to Burkina Faso. As for having a hard time, when I first got to Peace Corps, I was just as happy and at ease as ever. During my first few months in Gotheye, I would walk around the village with this amazing sense of “how lucky am I?” I was having such an amazing time, I decided a thousand times the tarot card reader must have been full of shit. What struggles? I thought. Sure I was adjusting and had bad days, but overall was very happy.

When we were consolidated in November 2009 and I was evacuated from Gotheye I reread the entry I made in my journal after visiting the tarot card reader. (I wrote it all down as a way to verify I didn’t change the details around in my head to make his prophecy seem truer.) I had forgotten he’d said I would like it at first and start to struggle only after the first few months, so I about lost it when I read the words (there in my own hand writing) “you will like it for the first four months, and then in NOVEMBER you will lose your footing and never get it back.”

At this point, I started telling more people about what was happening. And, those I told wisely counseled not to let his words become a self-fulfilling prophecy in which I was told I would be miserable, and so let myself be miserable. I was also determined to be happy and successful, so for my part, I did everything I could to make life in my second village work. I certainly did struggle with questions of inequality, but not in the oh-my-gosh-everyone-here-had-nothing-and-I-have-so-much way. I mean, that did cross my mind, but what I was essentially obsessed with during my time in Golle were two things: why did I get such a bad site; and how come everyone is doing better work than me? Whenever a friend did a successful project, it made me feel so inadequate. When I visited other friends’ sites, I would spend the entire visit silently tallying up the things they had that made their life easier than mine. This is not a new thing for me…in fact, I would say it is one of my fundamental character flaws. But before Niger, I had never had to face (with such the stabbing frequency and proximity) my inability to always be the best. So, yes I suffered and struggled with questions of inequity.

At the point in my service when I took the PCVL position and moved to Dosso, I wondered a couple of things. First, if this was my big move, how come the tarot card reader hadn’t told me I would move from my first village too? He’d only mentioned one move. Second, what life work would I find as the PCVL?

The same week I had been in country a year and a half, we were evacuated. Let me say that again, the SAME week I'd been in country a year and a half, we were evacuated. I was one of thirty or so who were lucky enough to continue our service and not return to the states.

This just blows my mind. This isn't like predicting "the Peace Corps will be hard," which is like saying "it will rain this winter in Seattle" or "Lindsay Lohan will return to rehab." It's not like leaving after a year and half is a common thing for a PCV. In fact, I would say it's extremely rare. My best guess is that more than 90% of volunteers who make it through their first year stay for the entire second year. No one leaves after a year and half, just six months before his COS date.

Just...consider it...

No, I haven’t found my life’s work in Senegal. And the other thing he told me, which apparently had not come true is that I would meet the love of my life here in Africa…but he said “in the next one to three years,” so I’ve still got until April of 2012…

That’s the story. Even after everything, I, myself, am still not sure what to make of it. Amidst the evacuation I was convinced that tarot card reader must have a direct line with fate, but now I've started doubting it again. I mean, yes, everything he said came true, but now I’ve been in Senegal TWO WHOLE MONTHS and STILL haven’t found my life’s work...but such is the human mind that it always tries to rationalize the unexplainable and remain in control.