What a week. I almost feel like I should make a second Peace Corps timeline to chronicle all the events that have happened since posting the last one in my first post. But I'm too lazy to go through my email archives. Please take a second and scroll your eyeballs a bit in the upward direction and re-read the Mark Twain quote I posted when I first created this blog. Pretty much sums up my sentiment of this week's events in my Peace Corps pre-departure saga.
To make a long story short, after postponing the staging and departure date to monitor the situation in Guinea, Peace Corps ultimately decided to pull the plug on the whole program. Major understandable bummer. By the next morning, most of my training group (including myself) began receiving re-assignments via phone calls from DC. My phone call went something like this:
"Hello Clifford, this is Lisa (I made up this name to protect her privacy, haha, who knows who lurks these murky waters of the internetz) from the placement office."
"Hi"
"Have you spoken to the Business Desk?"
"Yeah"
"Great! Thank you for your continued interest in the Peace Corps! Would you be interested to leave at the end of February to Francophone Africa?"
"Yeah"
"Great we have a program for you. I'll send out a new invitation and you should receive it in a few days!"
"Great, appreciate the quick response."
"Bye!"
She was actually very pleasant to talk to. So I go back to my laptop and reports from my training group via email begin to trickle in with one volunteer being placed in Madagascar leaving end of February. Sounds very similar to mine so I pull up Peace Corps Wiki departure dates and Madagascar pops up. So I email my placement officer and say yo where I'm goin'? Another long story short, I'm now going to !Madagascar! Now I no longer want a dog but a tomato frog as a pet. And I want to go on an underwater snorkeling safari. And marvel at eight feet yellow butterflies.
Within the next few hours my whole group is blasting emails with "I'm going to Mali!", "I'm going to Namibia!","I'm going to Zambia!", "I'm going to Madagascar too!", "I'm going to Ecuador!", "I don't know where I'm going!" It was pretty exciting and disorienting to read everyone's new re-assignments, especially after a day of gloom from news of the cancellation the day before. Good thing I got to see Weezer in concert that night. Damn, it was so sick. But I digress, this blog is about Peace Corps.
Then I got sad and had to close the computer and go buy food. Who knew you could miss people you've never met? I guess something about the common thread of all these young folks giving up two years of their lives really made me respect them all the more. Especially when going through the normal motions of school, work, then whatever else afterwards seem so much easier to do. People who do this really are accepting a challenge to test themselves to their ultimate limit (and probably more so). I know I am. Props to my Guinea group.
Now, I'm transitioning my brain to embrace Madagascar. Haven't quite built up the level of love I had for Guinea, but I won't lie. Reading about coral reefs off the north shore and seasonal lychee and jackfruit is really pressing my buttons in all the right ways. However, I do find myself, like now, pulling up articles to follow Guinea and its progress. Today the Supreme Court confirmed one of the candidate's victory and I couldn't help but feel very excited for the country. I found myself speculating how the president would handle all the mining contracts in attempt to keep all foreign investment fair and at bay for the good of the country and how long it would take for these things to implement, yadda yadda yadda. I won't be in/directly involved in any of that anymore... So, to Guinea, I bid you goodbye even though I never got the chance to visit. I will 4sho step foot in Conakry at one point in my lifetime (God willing) and try your pho restaurant.
And to you Madagascar...Looking forward to when I dig my toes into your white sandy beaches. Insert exit music with cartoon penguins with yellow hair banging on a conga drum.
Forgot to mention, I am very thrilled that my sexy Maui beach wallpaper you see behind this text, courtesy of my amazing photography skills, still applies to my new assignment. Continuity rules.
Outtie.
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