Interrupted Service

As of the end of this month, the number of volunteers in Mauritania will be about 1/3 of what it was just a few months ago. The majority of this is due to the fact that the second year volunteers have finished their service and there are no new volunteers because the Mauritanian government did not grant them visas. This is old news. What is new is that we were just offered the option to take interrupted service. If we accepted the volunteers from my class would return home and have the option to re-apply to another country or just finish their service with full benefits. This was offered due to a variety of factors and many people on the ground here view it as an overreaction. I can see how a country with an unstable government and religiously motivated killings of Americans can seem pretty scary to people at home. However, I can not discern any change in the security situation of volunteers since we arrived. I also have complete confidence in our Country Director, both that he has the best information available and that he will make the best decision based off of that information. I thought briefly about going home and trying to go to a different country since I was considering doing a third year as a way to see more of the world and that would just be the reverse of that; 1 year here and 2 years somewhere else. However, after the initial novelty of that idea wore off, it was very clear that I am committed to being here. I enjoy the work that I have created and I enjoy the level at which the Mauritanians have engaged in my projects. It will be sad to loose more volunteers but the ones who are sticking around are the ones who are generally happier about being here, so we have a good crew left. For some people it was a good thing that they had this option, but for me it will be difficult enough to leave here a year from now and it is impossible to walk away from now.