A while ago I mentioned that if anyone was looking for a vacation, or just had no work, they should come and spend some time in Mauritania. I can't say that I am surprised that no one took me up on that. It was not exactly a tourist destination; the town where we had our training was described by Lonely Planet as "a sleazy border town with a sinister feel" and the book recommended generally avoiding the whole country. I don't agree with any of that but I do have to admit it wasn't the hottest tourist destination. Senegal, however, is. So you should all come to visit especially since my work is about bringing more tourists. When you think about it, you coming to vacation in Senegal is going to help me with my development work, so do a good deed and come bum around Senegal. Seriously.
For more information check out the tourism section on www.pcsenegal.org
and http://www.lonelyplanet.com/senegal
Additionally, I just got back from visiting my site. Someone asked me to describe what it was like in a word: Perfect. Somewhere in between swimming at the base of 400 foot waterfalls, walking around the small paths between the corn rows in my village, planning hiking trips around the mountains, seeing my new excessively large hut, talking with my work partners who have already starting doing the work I am going to help them with, chasing around my host mother's monkey, shooting the shit with the elders, strolling through the forest, and hearing chimpanzees I compared what my new site is like and what my site in Mauritania was like and I nearly cried. I cannot complain about anything as long as I am here. I don't have photos yet, but the photos section on the region's website: www.pckedougou.org
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Easier the second time around
Yep, life this past few weeks has been pretty easy and relaxed, but not boring. I have to say the second time around, everything seems to be a bit easier. Of course it helps that the physical environment of Senegal is better in every way. Also, learning a different dialect of a language you already know is cake by comparison to learning a totally new language. Still, I am finding it very interesting to relearn a different Pulaar. It is helping me learn and understand grammatical structures that I wasn’t able to pick up the first time around. Additionally having already been through and gotten over most of the cultural differences makes a huge difference. I just a few weeks I am at the level of integration and comfort with host family number three (Therno, Therno Hamidou, Kajatu, Kajatu, Hawa, Hawa, Bilow, Aliou, Neene, and many other of course) that it took me several months to reach with my host family at site and I never reached with my first training family. It also helps that I feel more at ease in the, by comparison to Mauritania, liberal Senegalese society. Its sort of weird to be able to have physical contact like shaking hands with women again. Sort of like I can finally relax after a year of being on edge and always having to remember that any public contact could be offensive depending on who was around.
At the same time, starting over for the second time with a year still to go feels about as long as starting for the first time with two years ahead of me. Although I know this will be a fleeting feeling based on how quickly the last year went by. Actually I expect this year to go by even faster largely due to the fact that structure, staff, and direction of PC Senegal seems to be more conducive to more work achievements. I hold the staff of PC RIM in high regard, especially Obie, the country director, and Aw and Kane, my bosses, what they were able to accomplish and maintain up until the end in Mauritania was nothing short of remarkable. Yet, for a variety of reasons, Senegal is easier to operate in and therefore more is possible.
As of yet I have not had much technical training on what I will be doing as an eco-tourism volunteer but I will be going out to my site in a few weeks and should have a better idea after that. Most likely I will be working on improving a tourist lodge in my village, working on trails to the waterfalls, and promoting my site as a tourist destination. I am more excited about the physical work and the purpose it is trying to achieve than I was with my old position. Apparently when I get posted to the site I will be living with the village chief, and will be changing my last name for the fourth time. (Sow to Sall to Ba to Diallo for those who are keeping track.) As always, I will be keeping my first name of Amadou just for simplicity’s sake. Its sort of funny, at my old site everyone was trying to get me to change my last name to Ba because the name of my town literally meant “the place of Ba.” Now that it is finally my name I will soon be changing it to Diallo, which is currently the last name I am supposed to want because “Diallo’s only eat beans, leaves, and dirt” I have to say. This brings up the joking relationships between families and friends that exists here. I believe I have mentioned this before but it is work ruminating on again.
They love to pick on each other. At first this seemed crass and socially “undeveloped” to me, but I have come to appreciate it in the wider context of how the culture operates. Can you imagine going up to a Smith in the states that you didn’t know and saying “your last name is no good, you’re whole family is dirty and eats trash” just because your last name is Thomas and expect the person to not think twice about it? One of the great advantages of a culture that places high value on community is that it takes a lot to disrupt the social equilibrium. My old landlord and I used to get into vicious verbal fights about the rent every month because, and the whole village agreed with this, he was crazy. Still no matter how upset we were with each other that day he never held a drudge into the morning. Personally I believe that part of that was because he had to recognize that my position was pretty reasonable and he was just trying to extort money from me, despite the fact that he always ended every argument about trying to get me to pay more that we had agreed to with “in the end money does matter it is only God who judges us.” Which I thought was pretty ironic. Whatever the reasons were, the fact that he never was angry the next day is very typical for West African culture and that I hope has positively rubbed off on me.
At the same time, starting over for the second time with a year still to go feels about as long as starting for the first time with two years ahead of me. Although I know this will be a fleeting feeling based on how quickly the last year went by. Actually I expect this year to go by even faster largely due to the fact that structure, staff, and direction of PC Senegal seems to be more conducive to more work achievements. I hold the staff of PC RIM in high regard, especially Obie, the country director, and Aw and Kane, my bosses, what they were able to accomplish and maintain up until the end in Mauritania was nothing short of remarkable. Yet, for a variety of reasons, Senegal is easier to operate in and therefore more is possible.
As of yet I have not had much technical training on what I will be doing as an eco-tourism volunteer but I will be going out to my site in a few weeks and should have a better idea after that. Most likely I will be working on improving a tourist lodge in my village, working on trails to the waterfalls, and promoting my site as a tourist destination. I am more excited about the physical work and the purpose it is trying to achieve than I was with my old position. Apparently when I get posted to the site I will be living with the village chief, and will be changing my last name for the fourth time. (Sow to Sall to Ba to Diallo for those who are keeping track.) As always, I will be keeping my first name of Amadou just for simplicity’s sake. Its sort of funny, at my old site everyone was trying to get me to change my last name to Ba because the name of my town literally meant “the place of Ba.” Now that it is finally my name I will soon be changing it to Diallo, which is currently the last name I am supposed to want because “Diallo’s only eat beans, leaves, and dirt” I have to say. This brings up the joking relationships between families and friends that exists here. I believe I have mentioned this before but it is work ruminating on again.
They love to pick on each other. At first this seemed crass and socially “undeveloped” to me, but I have come to appreciate it in the wider context of how the culture operates. Can you imagine going up to a Smith in the states that you didn’t know and saying “your last name is no good, you’re whole family is dirty and eats trash” just because your last name is Thomas and expect the person to not think twice about it? One of the great advantages of a culture that places high value on community is that it takes a lot to disrupt the social equilibrium. My old landlord and I used to get into vicious verbal fights about the rent every month because, and the whole village agreed with this, he was crazy. Still no matter how upset we were with each other that day he never held a drudge into the morning. Personally I believe that part of that was because he had to recognize that my position was pretty reasonable and he was just trying to extort money from me, despite the fact that he always ended every argument about trying to get me to pay more that we had agreed to with “in the end money does matter it is only God who judges us.” Which I thought was pretty ironic. Whatever the reasons were, the fact that he never was angry the next day is very typical for West African culture and that I hope has positively rubbed off on me.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
New Life
First of all, thanks again to everyone for all your support through the last few weeks and especially to my family for your loving concern. After having to chose from a lot of options in a few days, a process that was greatly facilitated by PC Washington staff, I settled on finishing my service as a Small Enterprise Development volunteer doing eco tourism work in southern Senegal. All things being what they are, I am pretty excited about this opportunity since it will allow me to do more of my favorite type of work. My new site will also be pretty sweet. It is near three large waterfalls and chimpanzees frequent the area. Perhaps I will get the chance to live in what we all think of as "Africa" after all. I will be going through training again but first I am taking the opportunity to go to the village on the Senegalese side of the river from my site where I will be able to invite my friends and family over to say goodbye. All and all I am happy to be finishing my service in Senegal and look forward to the new adventure. Senegal is definitely a nicer place to be in but I have a feeling my heart will always be in Mauritania; hardship accompanied by wonderful people has profound affect. I hope to have the opportunity to return there as a volunteer and especially to help train a new class of volunteers.
For now, I am living in the moment and relishing this new adventure as much as I can.
For now, I am living in the moment and relishing this new adventure as much as I can.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
End of Service Speech
I read this speech last night at our final dinner all together as a group of PCVs and staff:
I volunteered to do say something tonight and realized that is an impossible speech to make, there are just too many milestones that are passing. We have to deal with PC RIM being suspended, saying goodbye to PCVs, saying goodbye to APCDs, saying goodbye to Obie, and saying goodbye to Jody. The challenge is to meld all of these strands that are somewhat perversely twisted together here and produce some sort of catharsis that I feel like we all greatly need. Whether you are a PCV, APCD, CD, or THE D, you have been involved in the process of transition for at least three months. I know for us adopted Mauritanians, we have had this day in the back of our minds ever since it was announced there was no new stage class. It has been a long time dealing with uncertainty, guessing at what was going to happen, and plans interrupted. Some how I don't think my great talent of being able to recite all of the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby is going to suffice in this case.
Fortunately one of the benefits of this crux in the transition between the adventures in life is that it makes the true importance of what we value clearly stand out. More than any other facet of our busy existence, our relationships and connections to each other are what shine through in this difficult time. They have kept us in high spirits through tough situations and have brought us to tears when we knew the worst was true. In fact, I think perhaps when describing the Peace Corps there is no better framework to use than that of relationships. Today sum of us were asked to write our elevator speech about our experience in the Peace Corps in preparation for our return to the US. I would like to share mine with you now.
Given that I have a penchant for quotes as a way of explaining the truths in life in the most elegantly concise manner, if I were to sum up my PC experience in a sentence I would use Alfred Tennyson’s axiom of “I am a part of all that I have met.” I do not believe that I could find a more authentic sentiment about my time in the PC than that. In fact, I would challenge you all to do better. After all, at its heart, the PC is about establishing relationships. It says so directly in its 2nd and 3rd goals and the 1st instructs you do to just that in order to accomplish its own objectives. I have a good feeling that most of the countries in which the PC operates also implicitly teach the same lesson. The reason it takes a half an hour to walk across a small village in Mauritania is because that when you really think about it, whatever pressing activity you are going to do is almost never really more important to you than your friends and family. It is this lesson that the PC teaches us that keeps APCDs around for decades, makes a CD want to stay past what is allowed, and makes it very painful for a director to step down and say good by to an organization that does nothing but give.
Yes, I do believe that Tennyson spoke truth but I also believe that his quote is unfinished. If I may be so bold I would like to say that the full quote ought to be “I am a part of all that I have met and therefore all those that I know will remain with me throughout my wanderings.” As our shared time together fractures apart and we all head off to new and differently great adventures we can rely on the connections we have made and the relationships we have formed to carry us through this difficult transition period. At least as long as the PC keeps buying us phone credit.
Unfortunately most of us will not be able to share in person with our Mauritanian friends and family how much our connection to them means to us. However, we do have the opportunity to share that feeling with each here to night. To my fellow PCVs I’d like to speak for us all when I say that you guys mean the world to me. I can’t express how amazing it has been have become instantly close to you in the first few days of stage and then for that connection have grown so much stronger. We have all survived the worst hazing that Mauritania has to offer and have become closer and stronger for it. To the staff that is here with us tonight, we cannot thank you enough. You have consistently proven that the PC is not a job but a connection to service that one is called to. You have tutored us, aided us, and even sent us on paid vacation. For all this and more on behalf of the current RIM PCVs I would like to offer you all a small token of appreciation of the connection you have taken the time to build with us.
Tennyson says, “I am a part of all that I have met,” and I know that I will be connected to all of you for the rest of my life. In honor of that connection I would like to close with a poem and blessing that my father wrote to me when he first heard the news that PC RIM was being shut down:
The deck, it appears, is being shuffled yet again. May hope, peace,
and joy that passes all understanding sustain and flourish in you. The currents, and eddies of history are often capricious.
In all things love abides
I volunteered to do say something tonight and realized that is an impossible speech to make, there are just too many milestones that are passing. We have to deal with PC RIM being suspended, saying goodbye to PCVs, saying goodbye to APCDs, saying goodbye to Obie, and saying goodbye to Jody. The challenge is to meld all of these strands that are somewhat perversely twisted together here and produce some sort of catharsis that I feel like we all greatly need. Whether you are a PCV, APCD, CD, or THE D, you have been involved in the process of transition for at least three months. I know for us adopted Mauritanians, we have had this day in the back of our minds ever since it was announced there was no new stage class. It has been a long time dealing with uncertainty, guessing at what was going to happen, and plans interrupted. Some how I don't think my great talent of being able to recite all of the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby is going to suffice in this case.
Fortunately one of the benefits of this crux in the transition between the adventures in life is that it makes the true importance of what we value clearly stand out. More than any other facet of our busy existence, our relationships and connections to each other are what shine through in this difficult time. They have kept us in high spirits through tough situations and have brought us to tears when we knew the worst was true. In fact, I think perhaps when describing the Peace Corps there is no better framework to use than that of relationships. Today sum of us were asked to write our elevator speech about our experience in the Peace Corps in preparation for our return to the US. I would like to share mine with you now.
Given that I have a penchant for quotes as a way of explaining the truths in life in the most elegantly concise manner, if I were to sum up my PC experience in a sentence I would use Alfred Tennyson’s axiom of “I am a part of all that I have met.” I do not believe that I could find a more authentic sentiment about my time in the PC than that. In fact, I would challenge you all to do better. After all, at its heart, the PC is about establishing relationships. It says so directly in its 2nd and 3rd goals and the 1st instructs you do to just that in order to accomplish its own objectives. I have a good feeling that most of the countries in which the PC operates also implicitly teach the same lesson. The reason it takes a half an hour to walk across a small village in Mauritania is because that when you really think about it, whatever pressing activity you are going to do is almost never really more important to you than your friends and family. It is this lesson that the PC teaches us that keeps APCDs around for decades, makes a CD want to stay past what is allowed, and makes it very painful for a director to step down and say good by to an organization that does nothing but give.
Yes, I do believe that Tennyson spoke truth but I also believe that his quote is unfinished. If I may be so bold I would like to say that the full quote ought to be “I am a part of all that I have met and therefore all those that I know will remain with me throughout my wanderings.” As our shared time together fractures apart and we all head off to new and differently great adventures we can rely on the connections we have made and the relationships we have formed to carry us through this difficult transition period. At least as long as the PC keeps buying us phone credit.
Unfortunately most of us will not be able to share in person with our Mauritanian friends and family how much our connection to them means to us. However, we do have the opportunity to share that feeling with each here to night. To my fellow PCVs I’d like to speak for us all when I say that you guys mean the world to me. I can’t express how amazing it has been have become instantly close to you in the first few days of stage and then for that connection have grown so much stronger. We have all survived the worst hazing that Mauritania has to offer and have become closer and stronger for it. To the staff that is here with us tonight, we cannot thank you enough. You have consistently proven that the PC is not a job but a connection to service that one is called to. You have tutored us, aided us, and even sent us on paid vacation. For all this and more on behalf of the current RIM PCVs I would like to offer you all a small token of appreciation of the connection you have taken the time to build with us.
Tennyson says, “I am a part of all that I have met,” and I know that I will be connected to all of you for the rest of my life. In honor of that connection I would like to close with a poem and blessing that my father wrote to me when he first heard the news that PC RIM was being shut down:
The deck, it appears, is being shuffled yet again. May hope, peace,
and joy that passes all understanding sustain and flourish in you. The currents, and eddies of history are often capricious.
In all things love abides
Monday, August 10, 2009
Done
PC Mauritania is indefinitely suspended.
Fortunately the Mauritanian staff will keep their jobs until the program reopens, but no one is holding their breath for that to happen. The country has taken a serious dive in the direction it is heading and it will be a long recovery process when it turns around.
In the next four days we will be pumped through sessions on our options, medical evaluations, final reports, and lots of other procedures and then some of us will be returning home on Friday. Personally, I intend on coming home, but not that soon and then returning to somewhere to finish out my second year, probably West Africa because less than 1% of Americans speak French and they really need volunteers who do. I am in no way ready to be done with the Peace Corps and I am even less ready to say goodbye to my host family. How do you tell some one whose life was saved by a PCV when he was a child, said that Allah put love for the Peace Corps in his heart, and has since devoted his life to voluntarily and doggedly supporting any PCV he meets that not only are you abruptly leaving he might never see a PCV again? Needless to say, despite the fact that we all saw this coming, we are quite shaken up. You have to understand that this is not just our job that was canceled, but our lives as we know them.
As I figure out what happens next, I will let you know. Right now the only things I am sure of is that I am going to sleep, will eat breakfast tomorrow, and then start dealing with a whole new reality.
Fortunately the Mauritanian staff will keep their jobs until the program reopens, but no one is holding their breath for that to happen. The country has taken a serious dive in the direction it is heading and it will be a long recovery process when it turns around.
In the next four days we will be pumped through sessions on our options, medical evaluations, final reports, and lots of other procedures and then some of us will be returning home on Friday. Personally, I intend on coming home, but not that soon and then returning to somewhere to finish out my second year, probably West Africa because less than 1% of Americans speak French and they really need volunteers who do. I am in no way ready to be done with the Peace Corps and I am even less ready to say goodbye to my host family. How do you tell some one whose life was saved by a PCV when he was a child, said that Allah put love for the Peace Corps in his heart, and has since devoted his life to voluntarily and doggedly supporting any PCV he meets that not only are you abruptly leaving he might never see a PCV again? Needless to say, despite the fact that we all saw this coming, we are quite shaken up. You have to understand that this is not just our job that was canceled, but our lives as we know them.
As I figure out what happens next, I will let you know. Right now the only things I am sure of is that I am going to sleep, will eat breakfast tomorrow, and then start dealing with a whole new reality.
Thank You
This morning another RIM PCV who reads my blog commented to me what good support I have from friends and family back home, I fully agreed and I am very grateful for that. To those who comment, email, and write often, thank you for all of your insights and kind words. Having that connection to folks from home means more to me than you can know. To everyone else who follows this blog I thank you for your interest and quiet support. Without all of you being here with me I could not do what I do. Thank you.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Not Good News So Far
Lets review:
End of June: I get a call from PC RIM saying that Eco Health Camp, which was for 40 6th grade girls that I was hosting at my site, is canceled because they wanted to consolidate all of the volunteers at the end of the July for a conference and perhaps offer us the option to go home. I get this call while I am talking to the Mayor about the conference. Five minutes later I get another call saying not to worry, they are not going to cancel the camp and I finish my meeting with the Mayor.
The American was killed. It was of course terrible, but anyone who is proselytizing Christianity in a 99.9% Muslim country has to know that he or she is putting themselves at a serious risk.
Beginning of July: All the PCVs that are in country are offered the chance to terminate our service early and receive full benefits. About 20 PCVs decide to take this offer, mostly not because of security concerns but because of difficult work situations where they feel they could not make a difference. Since there are no new volunteers because the Mauritanian government did not offer visas, and many of the second year volunteers have left the country since they finished their service, there are now only a third of the total number of volunteers that would normally be in country. Some regions of the country only have a couple of volunteers left in them and most of the remaining volunteers are the ones along the Senegal River. Spirits are very high among the group that is left after the Interrupted Service option was offered even though our numbers are reduced because we now feel more badass for sticking around.
Middle of July: I dedicate all my time to making the final preparations for Eco Health Camp. Aziz, the one who led the coup d’état, is elected by a landslide over the other 8 candidates. The general perception is that while there was some fraud in the voting, it was not enough to swing the election because he won by so much anyway. The real fraud that occurred was during the campaigning.
They catch the guys who killed the American, I believe someone was killed during a firefight and one of them was wearing a belt of bombs at the time.
End of July: After a couple of days of running around, all the preparations for the Eco Health Camp are made, I am in a shop buying food for 70 people for 4 days and handing the clerk the money when I get a call from PC RIM saying that the camp is canceled because all of the volunteers have to go to the capital and then leave the country. I put the money back into my pocket and begin undoing a $4,000 USD project in two days that took two months to put together. Fortunately we can sell off or return without payment almost everything, although we do get stuck with 4,000 doughnut balls that we made. I start giving these out by the handfuls. If you ever wanted to see an example of a highly effective communication system, start giving out free doughnuts to kids and see how long it takes for a hundred of them to come to your house.
The reasons for the need to go to the capital and especially to go to Senegal are not exactly clear and we are not told how long we will be in Senegal for. However we are told to pack as though we are not coming back even though we are promised that we will be back. I pack up everything, which fit in a bag and a half, and tell my friends in my village that I will be back soon. When we arrive in the capital we learn a number of interesting bits of information. One is that PC Washington had put out a call to shut down PC RIM a couple of weeks ago but then after talking to PC RIM they quickly rescinded that call. We are told that we will be in Senegal for 10 days while folks from PC Washington come in and do a security assessment of the RIM. Why it was necessary that we leave our sites as they do this assessment is still not clear.
We leave for the training center in Senegal, how everything can be so much better in a country that shares a border with Mauritania is confounding. Upon arrival at the training center and talking with the representatives from PC Washington who are here we realize that we are going to be here for longer than 10 days and our chances of going back are starting to look not so good. We settle into a routine that more resembles summer camp than any summer camp I have ever been to. We sleep in dorms, have a movie room, sneak around, have organized sports, shoot fireworks at each other, steal peoples clothes, have classes, and rent out a bar all in an effort to stay entertained and motivated while we await our fate. The strong feeling among the volunteers is that we want to go back. No one wants the program shut down and while we recognize that there are security concerns we believe that they are vastly outweighed by the positive contribution we can make. We are not being cavalier with our lives, just serious about the mission behind jobs we signed up to do.
We run out of entertaining things to do at the training center so they send us all to the beach for 3 days where we rent out two houses on the government’s dime. (Remember to pay your taxes everyone :) The beach was amazing, we all had a heck of a time, clean up the entire beach (I love PCVs), and are pretty blissed out by the time we return to the center. After dinner we have a briefing where we expect to hear the plan for the next day when we will find out that the first suicide bombing in Mauritanian history just took place outside the French embassy in Nouakchott. Only the suicide bomber was killed. This happened on the last day of the security assessment and seems like so many nails in the coffin for PC RIM, but is by far worse news for Mauritanians themselves. It potentially screws up my next year but this trend has long term implications for the future of Mauritania and its peoples. We are told that instead of getting the briefing the next day, they are pushing it back and we are being moved from the training center to somewhere that is closer to the airport, the same place that PCVs from Senegal right before they go home at the end of their service. That brings you up to today. The only thing going on now is a volleyball tournament.
Its impossible to have a clear plan of what I would do if the program was shut down, but I would definitely go back to my site to say goodbye to my family and friends there. I would also be looking to transfer to another PC program hopefully just for another year. It is likely that the transfer would not happen right away, in which case I would probably bum around Africa or somewhere else in the world for a bit.
It is not definite that PC RIM will be shut down, but things are certainly not looking good. Theoretically we should know definitively what is going to be happening tomorrow night, but we all know better than to expect that to happen. It will likely be a few more days until we know...
End of June: I get a call from PC RIM saying that Eco Health Camp, which was for 40 6th grade girls that I was hosting at my site, is canceled because they wanted to consolidate all of the volunteers at the end of the July for a conference and perhaps offer us the option to go home. I get this call while I am talking to the Mayor about the conference. Five minutes later I get another call saying not to worry, they are not going to cancel the camp and I finish my meeting with the Mayor.
The American was killed. It was of course terrible, but anyone who is proselytizing Christianity in a 99.9% Muslim country has to know that he or she is putting themselves at a serious risk.
Beginning of July: All the PCVs that are in country are offered the chance to terminate our service early and receive full benefits. About 20 PCVs decide to take this offer, mostly not because of security concerns but because of difficult work situations where they feel they could not make a difference. Since there are no new volunteers because the Mauritanian government did not offer visas, and many of the second year volunteers have left the country since they finished their service, there are now only a third of the total number of volunteers that would normally be in country. Some regions of the country only have a couple of volunteers left in them and most of the remaining volunteers are the ones along the Senegal River. Spirits are very high among the group that is left after the Interrupted Service option was offered even though our numbers are reduced because we now feel more badass for sticking around.
Middle of July: I dedicate all my time to making the final preparations for Eco Health Camp. Aziz, the one who led the coup d’état, is elected by a landslide over the other 8 candidates. The general perception is that while there was some fraud in the voting, it was not enough to swing the election because he won by so much anyway. The real fraud that occurred was during the campaigning.
They catch the guys who killed the American, I believe someone was killed during a firefight and one of them was wearing a belt of bombs at the time.
End of July: After a couple of days of running around, all the preparations for the Eco Health Camp are made, I am in a shop buying food for 70 people for 4 days and handing the clerk the money when I get a call from PC RIM saying that the camp is canceled because all of the volunteers have to go to the capital and then leave the country. I put the money back into my pocket and begin undoing a $4,000 USD project in two days that took two months to put together. Fortunately we can sell off or return without payment almost everything, although we do get stuck with 4,000 doughnut balls that we made. I start giving these out by the handfuls. If you ever wanted to see an example of a highly effective communication system, start giving out free doughnuts to kids and see how long it takes for a hundred of them to come to your house.
The reasons for the need to go to the capital and especially to go to Senegal are not exactly clear and we are not told how long we will be in Senegal for. However we are told to pack as though we are not coming back even though we are promised that we will be back. I pack up everything, which fit in a bag and a half, and tell my friends in my village that I will be back soon. When we arrive in the capital we learn a number of interesting bits of information. One is that PC Washington had put out a call to shut down PC RIM a couple of weeks ago but then after talking to PC RIM they quickly rescinded that call. We are told that we will be in Senegal for 10 days while folks from PC Washington come in and do a security assessment of the RIM. Why it was necessary that we leave our sites as they do this assessment is still not clear.
We leave for the training center in Senegal, how everything can be so much better in a country that shares a border with Mauritania is confounding. Upon arrival at the training center and talking with the representatives from PC Washington who are here we realize that we are going to be here for longer than 10 days and our chances of going back are starting to look not so good. We settle into a routine that more resembles summer camp than any summer camp I have ever been to. We sleep in dorms, have a movie room, sneak around, have organized sports, shoot fireworks at each other, steal peoples clothes, have classes, and rent out a bar all in an effort to stay entertained and motivated while we await our fate. The strong feeling among the volunteers is that we want to go back. No one wants the program shut down and while we recognize that there are security concerns we believe that they are vastly outweighed by the positive contribution we can make. We are not being cavalier with our lives, just serious about the mission behind jobs we signed up to do.
We run out of entertaining things to do at the training center so they send us all to the beach for 3 days where we rent out two houses on the government’s dime. (Remember to pay your taxes everyone :) The beach was amazing, we all had a heck of a time, clean up the entire beach (I love PCVs), and are pretty blissed out by the time we return to the center. After dinner we have a briefing where we expect to hear the plan for the next day when we will find out that the first suicide bombing in Mauritanian history just took place outside the French embassy in Nouakchott. Only the suicide bomber was killed. This happened on the last day of the security assessment and seems like so many nails in the coffin for PC RIM, but is by far worse news for Mauritanians themselves. It potentially screws up my next year but this trend has long term implications for the future of Mauritania and its peoples. We are told that instead of getting the briefing the next day, they are pushing it back and we are being moved from the training center to somewhere that is closer to the airport, the same place that PCVs from Senegal right before they go home at the end of their service. That brings you up to today. The only thing going on now is a volleyball tournament.
Its impossible to have a clear plan of what I would do if the program was shut down, but I would definitely go back to my site to say goodbye to my family and friends there. I would also be looking to transfer to another PC program hopefully just for another year. It is likely that the transfer would not happen right away, in which case I would probably bum around Africa or somewhere else in the world for a bit.
It is not definite that PC RIM will be shut down, but things are certainly not looking good. Theoretically we should know definitively what is going to be happening tomorrow night, but we all know better than to expect that to happen. It will likely be a few more days until we know...
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