The End

So this post was supposed to be about Segou Music Festival (which was awesome!) and about my impromptu vacation to Spain (I decided 3 weeks beforehand that I would just go to Spain for awhile so I could eat pork and cheese and go to a beach- all the things I missed. Madrid and Valencia were really nice and I loved seeing my friend from college, Crystal.)... but it's not. Instead it is about the end of my Peace Corps journey.

The second day that I was in Madrid, Crystal and I were at the high school where she is an English teaching assitant in the teacher's lounge when one of the English teachers said "Did you hear about what's happening in Mali?" And I told her "Yea you mean the marches and the gunshots heard in Kati?" To which she replied "No, there was a coup d'etat. The President was attacked and the military is now in control." This was schocking information to me, and to be honest I didn't believe her. What would a Spanish woman know about Francophone country in Africa hundreds of miles away??? Crystal allowed me to check my Facebook and email on her iPhone, and that's when I found out that the teacher was right. There in fact had been a Coup d'Etat in Mali. The jist of what actually happened is that a man named Capt. Sanogo and a group of low ranking Army officers were tired of the way Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure, ATT, was handling the Tuareg Rebellion in the north of Mali (Tuaregs are fighting for an independent state in the north that they call Azwad). So to do something about this they ransacked the Presidential Palace in Bamako, declared that ATT was no longer in power and suspended the Constitution. Because of this ATT went into hiding, many ministers of government were arrested, a curfew was put in place, gunshots were heard all over Bamako, cars were stolen, the Senou International Airport was closed, land borders were closed and looting of houses and administrative buildings occurred.

Peace Corps Mali was immediately put on Standfast, where volunteers are to stay where they are and wait for further updates, and then put on Consolidation, where volunteers have to all meet up at the different emergency consolidation points all over the country. My volunteer friends were on consolidation for 8 days when the situation in Mali started to look better. There were no more gunshots heard, the Mutineers had re-opened the airport, no one had been killed, the Constitution was reinstated, and life was pretty much back to normal in the Capital. The majority of volunteers were taken off consolidation, and were even told they could go back to site. But then everything got worse. With the instability of the government in Bamako, the Tuaregs in the north were able to gain a lot of ground for their cause. Tuareg rebels were able to take control of 3 regional capitals in the north: Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. There have since been reports of imposed Sharia Law, rape, and looting. Luckily there haven't been volunteers as far north as Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu for several years, so no volunteers were in immediate danger, but there were fears that the Tuareg rebels would make their way down to Mopti and Sevare where there are volunteers. Volunteers in the north were evacuated to Bamako, and then a day later all volunteers were brought to Bamako as a precautionary measure. That same day it was decided that Peace Corps Mali would have to evacuate to a neighboring country and Peace Corps Mali would be closed.

All of this happened while I was in Spain (I left for Spain on March 20th, the Coup happened on the 22nd, and I left Spain on the 29th), and then later in Morocco (I've been here since March 29th), where I flew to when I was told I wasn't allowed by Peace Corps to come back to Mali. Peace Corps has put me up in Rabat with a stipend and a hotel room for the past week. Rabat has been very nice, but honestly I've hated being by myself and I've hated the emotional roller coaster I've gone through with the news from Mali constantly changing. I did not enjoy Spain to the fullest because I could not stop worrying about my future in Mali. Morocco has been even more rough because I have been by myself. I hate being alone, and being sad and alone is even worse. When I found out that Peace Corps Mali was being evacuated I can honestly say it was the saddest moment of my entire life. I had grown to love that country and its people with all my heart. I may not have "liked" it there all the time but I truly "loved" being there. All that kept going through my mind was that I never got to say goodbye and I didn't get to finish my library (It was almost done!!! All that needed to happen was painting the building and installing all the furniture). I couldn't believe that I left Mali thinking I'd only be gone for a week but now I may never get to go back.

Mali has been my life for the past 2 years (well almost 2 years, we were just 3 months shy of our 2 year mark). I can't even attempt to explain how my Peace Corps experience has changed me, except to say that it has been the most remarkable experience of my entire life. I will cherish all my memories from my time in Mali and Mali will always hold a special place in my heart. Since I didn't get to in person, I want to use this blog post to say goodbye:


Goodbye Moussa, you have been the best counterpart I could have ever hoped for! I have never met someone as motivated as you. I don't think anything but acting for the good of your community was ever on your mind. Thank you for all that you and your family have given me. For everything from building me a new house when I complained that I needed privacy, to laughing at my dumb jokes, to being the only one who really understood my broken French, to fixing anything that was broken, and even to fetching me water when the tap outside of my house would go dry. I will miss you so much.

Goodbye Afu, you have been a great host mom! You were so scared to host me at your house in the beginning because you don't know French and didn't know how we would communicate, but we found our way! Thank you for always having food for me to eat and thank you for being one of the only people who made a daily effort to speak to me in Bambara and not Senoufo. Thank you for helping your daughter Mayi get comfortable being around me, and thank you for letting me in on some of the village gossip! You opened your house and kitchen up to a perfect stranger who you then made feel like family.

Goodbye Mousieur le Mayor (Pornon), Diakalia, and the rest of the Mayor's Office Staff. You guys were my hosts every Wednesday and I could always count on you for a laugh. You were also my providers of a tasty Rice! meal every week. In the last few months you let me charge my computer with the solar panel there, and you always joked that you would build me a bed so that I would have a place to nap whenever I came to the Mayor's Office. You also all invited me into your homes for many a meal. So I just wanted to say Thank You for everything, I don't know if I've ever met a nicer group of guys!

Goodbye Teachers of the Secondary School and my host dad Kafono. You all have been the most understanding of me being an American living in a foreign place out of all the people in village. I could come to you guys for political debates and to talk about current events. Even though we may have argued about teaching methods, I always cherished the time I spent with you. Thank you for being the people I could connect with on a deeper level.

And finally Goodbye Zanferebougou. I don't think I could have asked for a better village. I've seen pictures from other volunteers sites and even though this is incredibly biased, I truly believe that Zanferebougou is the fairest of them all! Zanferebougou is beautifully laid out with cartiers (neighborhoods in French) that actually make sense and follow a grid. Zanferebougou is lush and green with mango trees everywhere. Zanferebougou also has the nicest people I've evr met who were willing to drop everything to help me. I will always love Zanferebougou and I am proud to say that I got to be a member of that community for 2 years.

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The next step for me is to meet up with my fellow PC Mali volunteers in a neighboring country (I am currently not allowed to publicly disclose this location, but I'm pretty excited to go there!) this Saturday where we will have a 1-2 week Transition Conference where we will basically tie up all the administrative strings before heading back to America. That being said I think I will be back in the States in about 3 weeks. I'm Coming Home!