Bye (and hello) from afar

I've been back for 8 weeks now. It's crazy for me to think about the day I left Guinea; we were told again and again we'd be going back in the coming weeks. Obviously, the staff reassuring us had no way of predicting just how "out of control" the Ebola outbreak was to become. I was in the last group to leave, staying in Conakry for a few nights and watching a group of around 30 volunteers leave each evening. Too many goodbyes to too many people I love. Finally, our group said farewells to the staff and at last we were off.

My first few weeks back were difficult, to say the least. I did not allow myself to readjust to being back, stubbornly convincing myself that I'd be headed to Guinea soon enough. I hibernated in Vermont for a little. I cried a silly amount. It hurt me so much to think about Guinea that, I'm embarrassed to say, I couldn't bring myself to contact my best Guinean friends until last week. I tried to turn the Guinea part of my brain onto "off" mode. It didn't work. Guinea spilled into my life in so many ways. Silly little things, like greeting and chatting with any person I came into contact with, or saving even the littlest bit of butter and returning it to the fridge, or experiencing something beyond appreciation every time I turned on a light, plugged in my phone, or took a shower.

I can imagine if I'd had more time to say goodbye and to prepare myself mentally for my departure, I'd miss Guinea, but not like how I've been feeling. When I think of all the people I didn't get to say goodbye to there are a few that immediately come to mind. The first is Madame Tounakara, my neighbor, who helped me with my laundry and is one of the more generous people I've ever met. She doesn't speak a lot of French but as my Malinke improved our relationship moved beyond the basic salutations. However, she LOVED showing off the bit of French she knew. Every time we'd say hello, she'd insist on saying, "Ça va au marché?" or rather, "How was the market?" ... Even if I was coming from school, or a neighbor's house, or Kankan. She's certainly asked my host family where I am by now, but thinking about not being able to tie up loose ends with her gives me a pit in my stomach. I also can't help but think about my students. I had no time to tell them I was leaving, no time to say goodbye. The only way I can make myself feel better is to remember that I can always call. Technology is AMAZING.

In fact, I just got off the phone with my principal. I love talking to him. He makes my extreme emotions seem silly, constantly saying he KNOWS I'd be there if I could, but I can't, and he loves/appreciates Peace Corps and knows they will be back one day. I told him a little bit about how much Ebola has been in the media here and asked him how much people in Cissela are talking about it. His answer: NOT AT ALL. He's part of a small group of educated men who goes to the "video club" each night to watch the national news broadcast, so he has a good idea of what's going on. But really, and I struggle explaining this to people who ask me about the evacuation, life in Cissela has barely changed. I myself didn't understand the gravity of the situation. I remember at the end of June I was in the Conakry airport and helped a volunteer with Doctor's Without Borders translate from English to French. He asked me if I was with the CDC; I replied that no, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. "Bad timing for you to be here, huh?" he said. It took me a beat to figure out that he was talking about Ebola. Although from this end it sort of seems like people are dying in the streets all across West Africa, Ebola is so many degrees of separation away from my village. The biggest concern in most people's heads right now is the peanut harvest which is currently underway.

That isn't to say that the outbreak isn't serious. It's been frustrating to follow, watching the painfully slow international reaction to what is now the largest Ebola outbreak in our globe's history. And, without a bolstered intervention, the CDC says that there could be 1.4 million cases by January. A sort of silver lining is that the situation in Guinea is said to have stabilized. Peace Corps Volunteers are doing what they can from afar, helping with opensource mapping in Ebola regions, holding talks in schools and community centers, and writing articles about the outbreak. The situation in Sierra Leone and Liberia continues to be dire; it will take years for these countries to fully recover economically. If you'd like to donate to the organizations doing the brunt of the work (treating the ill, running treatment centers, and "contact tracing" all individuals who have been exposed), you can read more about them here.

So, what now? Liberia and Sierra Leone have officially closed their Peace Corps offices. Guinea remains on "administrative hold" awaiting another update on October 15th. I applied for and was offered a 10 month long position with Peace Corps Mali, but I turned it down. I just can't start all over again; I'm only just now a little bit okay with being in the US. Don't get me wrong: saying no to that offer was a painstakingly difficult decision. I'm still not 100 percent sure I made the right choice, but at least the choice has been made and I no longer have to mull it over. I'm applying to graduate schools, seeing friends and family, and becoming reacquainted with Boston. You know what? It's really not that bad. The fact is, you can have two homes. Hell, you can have three. I was so nervous when I called my Guinean friends for the first time after evacuation, scared they'd be resentful or angry I hadn't contacted them earlier. You know what I heard in their voices? Pure joy. You know how I felt when I got off the phone? Giddy. Coming back here, I've realized that if you are close enough with a person you can always fall back into your established relationship. I was in Guinea long enough for that to be true with my Guinean friends and family. Leaving sucked, but these days it's all about the silver linings.