Moving forward

On Monday, August 10th, I was told that the Peace Corps would be suspending its program in Mauritania, and I could not return to my village to collect my belongings or say my goodbyes.

On Monday, August 17th, I was at my mom's house in Kennett Square, PA.

Really weird.

All last week was a whirlwind, to say the least. Paperwork upon paperwork, medical screenings and blood draws and skin tests, psychiatric counseling, all the while trying to relish my very last moments with the other RIM PCVs who have come to mean so much to me over the last 14 months. And then the question of the future: where to go? What to do? The Peace Corps Washington staff presented a lot of options to us...

I could direct-transfer to another country (most likely West Africa, they said) immediately, and I'd be there in the next week. I could go home to collect myself a bit and re-enroll in a new country within the next 12 months, although there'd be no guarantee that I could get a contract for only one more year -- I might have to start a new full term of 27 months. I could participate in a short-term commitment abroad called Peace Corps Response. I could use my status as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) for non-competitive eligibility for federal positions, like working at Peace Corps Headquarters or with the Civil or Foreign Service. Or I could just call it a day and start grad school apps.

Oh, and please make this decision in the next 48 hours max, thanks.

It was tough. But I am very, very happy to announce to you that I will be continuing my Peace Corps service as an English teacher in Rwanda.

Immediately I feel the need to defend my decision, because I know what thoughts it inevitably invokes in most people's minds: she's been evacuated from a place with a growing presence of al-Qaeda -- and now this is what she's chosen as her next step? Out of the frying pan, into the fire?

I would like to cite Fareed Zakaria, respected author and current editor of Newsweek International. Just a month ago, he was interviewed by CNN and spoke of why Rwanda is "Africa's biggest success story." He says:

You remember what happened in there just 15 years ago -- over a period of 100 days 800,000 men, women, and children were killed -- most of them slaughtered with knives, machetes, and axes by their neighbors. It is perhaps the most brutal genocide in modern history. By the time it ended, one tenth of the country's population was dead. Most people assumed that Rwanda was broken and, like Somalia, another country wracked by violence, would become a poster child for Africa's failed states. It's now a poster child for success.

President Paul Kagame wants to make Rwanda into the "Singapore of Africa." In recent days he has made incredible reforms and is ramping up a huge push towards science and technology. He plans to make the entire country WiFi-ready in the next few years. He has outlawed plastic bags.

Additionally, President Kagame nixed the colonial French as an official language and declared that all instruction (beginning in primary school) would be henceforth conducted in English. Slight problem: shortage of qualified English teachers.

Enter the Peace Corps, which reopened its Rwanda program in January of this year after suspending it in 1993. On October 5th, I will be leaving with at least 12 of my fellow RIM PCVs, including some of my closest friends: Ryan, Mark, Matt, Scott, Ashley, Megan, Colleen, Brandon, Michele, Lindsay, Austin, and Marta.

It's crazy! It's fast! It's, yes I know, RWANDA! But I assure you that it is a safe place for us to be (U.S. News and World Report agrees), and I am so unbelievably excited about the coming year. We will be arriving alongside some brand-new PCVs and going through the language training to learn Kinyarwanda. The other RIM PCVs and I will be helping to conduct the technical training (Model School, etc.) for the new class, since Rwanda is a new program and does not have any veteran volunteers to offer assistance.

I will continue to blog and will inform you when I have the new site set up and ready. In the meantime, I intend to post a few final photos/videos on this blog as I say farewell to my time in Mauritania.

It's surprisingly hard to be back. For months and months we had all dreamed of being in that far-away, magical place called America. I had always thought I would be bursting with joy when my feet hit the ground, but when I stepped off the plane in Dulles I felt overwhelmed and empty and confused. Where am I? How did I get here? Is this real? I was so out of practice with flying that I forgot to put my precious Leatherman knife/multitool in my checked luggage and had it confiscated.

I forced my feet to shuffle through the airport, and I spotted a popular Peace Corps advertisement. Perhaps you've seen it:


And I almost stopped in my tracks. It's not true, I wanted to tell everyone around me! That's not a promise! I joined the Peace Corps, and there's still so much I "should've" done. I should've given my clothes to my sisters, I should've taken a video of my little brother singing and dancing, I should've emptied my local bank account and distributed it among all my friends in the village...

But in this life, you never know. All I can do is move forward.

A final enormous _THANK YOU_ to all of you who have contacted me in the wake of this. Your support has been humbling and amazingly sustaining, and I appreciate it, more than you know.

So long, PCRIM.


Leaving Atlanta -- June 20, 2008


Goodbye dinner in Dakar -- August 12, 2009

Not what I had planned

All of Peace Corps Mauritania arrived to the Senegal training center in Thiès on July 28. For a few days, we had some legitimate professional development sessions. But then we kind of started running out of things to do... It's no fun to live in limbo, and I for one was really wishing there was any kind of timeline for how soon we would receive the verdict on Peace Corps Washington's security check of our country. I cannot be ungrateful for all the nice amenities available to us at the center, but we were getting a little antsy.

It was like one big summer camp, as we tried to fill our time as much as possible. We had two big volleyball tournaments. A Senegalese drum troupe came and performed for us, and I tried my hand (and feet) at a little African dancing. We visited a famous tapestry museum/factory, where they reproduce beautiful local paintings onto large-scale wall hangings (to the tune of about $6,000 USD apiece). Several of us attended mass at the Keur Moussa monastery, which has artwork of biblical scenes depicted in an African style while the monks sing in native languages with traditional instruments. We went to the Lac Rose, a lake that appears pink in color due to the high salt concentration of the water. And then we went down to a beach town called Popenguine, where we rented out a gorgeous ocean-front house for two nights. We even bought a live pig and had a roast!

We returned from the beach to Thiès on Saturday evening. Dinner was served, and then staff announced that we'd have a quick meeting. At 9 PM? We joked to each other that it was probably just a meeting to tell us we were having another meeting tomorrow. What could be sooo important that it couldn't just wait 12 hours?

Well, this: we were informed that two hours ago, a suicide bomber had blown himself up in front of the French embassy in Nouakchott. [Very informative video on France 24]

My chest seized up. Everyone's faces were shock, only shock. There were a few palpable moments of silence, just the rain continuing to fall, and fall; just the thunder.

And in my mind? Game. Over.

I had held such hope up to this point -- and not falsely, I felt. We had talked about the "possibility" of not returning to RIM, but I had not really thought this would happen. If anything, I predicted that Washington would recommend we close the far northern and eastern regions of the country and consolidate us to the Senegal River (where there is no history or evidence of any extremist trouble). But this was a whole new story. A punch in the gut. You don't shake this off, dust it over. In that one sentence, my hope plummeted to 0%. That night I couldn't even sleep. My head swam.

Today we moved from the training center to Dakar, because Senegal's new training class arrives in a few days and they needed to prepare the space. We arrived to a luxurious hotel, and with my poolside room and more high-speed wireless internet, it seemed this strange "vacation" would continue at least a few more days.

We were to have a briefing at 5:30 PM, so we all gathered. When we walked in the conference room, there were Cheez-Its and Double Stuf Oreos waiting on a table for us. Odd as it may sound, that's when I knew it was all over. That stuff doesn't exist in West Africa, and the fact that it was here was not a good sign.

Then out walk about eight white people we've never seen before. Not a good sign. One is introduced as Jody Olsen -- the national director of the entire Peace Corps.

Not a good sign.

Ms. Olsen begins by telling us how much she loves Mauritania and how dear it is to her heart. She personally traveled around there two years ago, and she speaks fondly and enthusiastically of it often. (This is not lip-service; I know this to be true.) She goes on: "That is why it makes it all the more difficult for me to tell you that you are not going to go back there."

I knew it was coming -- we all knew, really -- but hearing those words was unpredictably paralyzing. It's like having many of your friends die AND your house burn down, all at once. What do you do? Tears spilled down my face. And wouldn't stop. Even our country director was crying, and hugging everyone after the meeting.

Starting tomorrow, we have a four-day "transition conference" led by the aforementioned white people, most of whom flew in from Washington to assist us. There are a lot of logistics to figure out, and many options for us to choose from. We can go home, or we can direct-transfer immediately to another country, or we can take the middle road and go home but re-apply for a new country, essentially jumping the queue of current applicants. Whatever we choose, we will all be done with Peace Corps Mauritania by this Friday. I still have a lot to process and think about.

No goodbyes. My host family in Dar El Barka (all 20+ members, many of whom I don't have so much as a photo -- you don't take pictures of the day-to-day living). The mayor, who was so kind to me. My coworkers at school. My students, my precious precious students. My neighbor, who I was teaching English. Our tailor. Our landlord. My Boghé driver. My Pulaar teacher. My host family from training in PK7.

This is the last photo I took in Dar El:


They're just living life. Fatimata is braiding Thillo's hair, while Thillo separates the hair extensions in her lap. Mariam's baby Samba sits and amuses himself nearby, probably with some trash he picked up. Fati Sidi sits in the middle, next to her mosquito net-covered "bassinet" of sorts. It holds her newborn Kadia Moussa, born July 3rd. Molel, on the left, has just given toddler Papa the communal cup of water. When he's through, she will replace it on the clay pot serving basin, and head back to the kitchen hut to check on lunch's progress.

I know that they performed variations of this scene today, and they will do it tomorrow, and the next day, and next month. But I will never again be there for it.