Coup Runnings

COS Prom 2012

Well, I did it!  I am officially a returned Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (or RPCV in PC speak, where one, eats, sleeps, and breathes acronyms) from Mali.  To those of you who saw me off in the states, you’re probably thinking, wow that two years went really, really fast.  You would be wrong.  My first attempt at PC was a huge failure thanks to an unplanned coup and an increasingly violent and dangerous war in the north of Mali only aided by said coup.  The last few weeks has been pretty wild.  Everyone was consolidated shortly after the coup (except Koulikoro region, my region).  I was left at site to dabble in bi-polarity.  It’s not so bad, who wouldn’t want to feel so emotionally volatile that you want to kick puppies and flip off children, who just will not stop standing at your gate and watching you do nothing more than read for hours at a time?  Every few minutes I was going back and forth on whether or not we were going to be evacuated.  I kept working, but I found that devoting myself to language and/or putting up with the subtly annoying things was nearly impossible.  I was running out of money and sanity, so I crossed the river and went to my site-mates site.  We went and camped by the river with two other of our closest volunteers.  We thought we were being so smart to set up our tents before it got dark, which was smart, but that’s where forethought stopped.  We immediately ran to the riverbank and started cocktail hour to dull the pain of not knowing what our immediate futures held.  It got dark, we were relaxed, and then we realized we had only one headlamp for four people (mistake #1).  As we were single-file searching for our tents, being blindly led by our fearless leader Anderson, he spotted the area where our tents had once stood only to discover that they had of course blown away because it was crazy windy and we did nothing to weight them down (mistake #2).  It was a much-needed break from site that did not go off without a hitch.  About a week after that they finally made the decision to evacuate us, which was bitter sweet to say the least.  I think we were all happy to not be living in limbo anymore, but at least I personally was very sad to not serve out my full two years in Mali.  It’s truly a lovely country with the most welcoming people I’ve ever had the chance to meet.  I sincerely hope Peace Corps makes it back there very soon.

We were evacuated to Ghana not too long after the decision was made.  Peace Corps chartered a flight for us from Bamako to Accra, which was just plain ridiculous.  To say people were drowning their sorrows in the duty free would be an absolute understatement.  We arrived safe enough and man is Accra ever humid.  It felt like swimming on land.  We got to the hotel and were all very surprised to discover our digs for the week.  This hotel was bananas.  It was nicer then almost any hotel I’ve ever been to in the states.  I guess that was our consolation prize.  After being told there was no way, no chance at all for any of us to transfer, they presented us with several options.  I had to decide what I wanted to do for the next two years in the matter of a few hours.  I was very stressed on top of the extreme exhaustion I was feeling from the late nights with nearly 200 confused, happy, and sad volunteers deciding their next steps.  Life is pretty wild, I certainly was not expecting to be uprooted so soon, but here I am.  I chose The Gambia pretty much blindly and for basically no real reason at all.  I probably had never heard of it before last week and now I’m here.  You’ve probably never heard of it either.  It’s maybe one of the strangest countries I’ve ever seen.  Google it if you’re curious.  Several others of my friends transferred to Senegal and being literally completely inside Senegal lends itself to some crass, but hilarious jokes.  I’ll leave you to fill in the rest.  It seems like a lovely place so far.  The transit house is a mere five-minute walk from the beach, so that’s not too shabby.  That’s also something I would have never enjoyed in Mali. It is certainly going to be hard not to compare the two, but I’m going to try and think of this as a fresh start and since I am sort of joining the new training class, it is literally a fresh start.  I feel a lot more tired, a lot less nervous, but also a lot less excited this time around.  I’m going to be the newbie for almost a year!  It’s groundhogs day.  Hopefully I learned a thing or two the first time around.  I made some good friends and now I have plenty of places to stay all throughout West Africa (silver lining).  I might have to learn a new language and get used to all new germs, but when I’m old and grey I’ll be able to say I survived a Coup d’État.