The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

Before I left for Mali, I heard Peace Corps described as “the toughest job you’ll ever love”. Boy is that true. From language barriers to cultural differences to being a replacement volunteer to staring starvation in the face to feeling completely inept and useless to loneliness and homesickness to anemia, giardia and heat rash, the last two years have been far from easy. But, I gradually came to love Kourouma and saying goodbye this past Friday was also far from easy.

The last few weeks at site just flew by. I had so much to do – baby weighings, giving away lots of random things, saying goodbye, etc. Unfortunately rain kind of affected my leaving and saying goodbye to everyone. We had a party planned for last Tuesday night. There was going to be food in the late afternoon, and representatives from all ten villages in the commune were going to gather at the Mayor’s office to eat together and give the Mayor a chance to explain that my two years were up. Well, this is rainy season. At about 4 pm I went to my homologue’s concession to see how the food preparation was going. They already had a huge pot of sauce and a smaller pot of vegetables cooking outside over a fire. I was only there for about a minute though when it just started pouring. I honestly have not seen a rain as big as the one that came that Tuesday. My homologue and some of her friends who had come over to help cook put the rice in the sauce, even though it was raining. By the time the food was ready and the rains had slowed down, half of the village was flooded. So there was no way that the meeting at the Mayor’s and the dance party could happen. No one from any outside village would have been able to travel. We still divided up the food among the Mayor’s concession, Doctor’s office and Village Chief’s concession and moved the dance party to Wednesday night. Well, what do ya know, Wednesday night it poured again! I was beginning to think that Allah just didn’t want me to have a going away party. On Thursday I was pretty stressed because it was my last full day in Kourouma. That morning I hung out with Ninon and Zeini, the two Foh teachers who helped me paint the World Map. They had come to Kourouma to drink tea and chat for a few hours before I had to leave. They also gave me a chicken as a parting gift. That afternoon I spent several hours at Maminatta’s house to see her family and this friend of the family’s who had come from another village just to see me off. I was so nervous that it was going to rain again, but the sky stayed clear and that night we were able to have the party. The instrument played was called the “dununba” which is basically just a giant drum. There was one guy who held that drum, along with several other guys who played smaller percussion instruments. There were also two women who sang. It was a typical Malian dance, with a number of people forming a circle in the center. I danced for one song which lasted about 10 minutes. It was fun because by the time the song was over, there were probably about 70 people in the circle. Unfortunately we weren’t able to have a meeting at the Mayor’s office, as the food had already been cooked on Tuesday and people were a bit unsure of the schedule of events. As a result of that, there were quite a few people, especially from out of town, but some older folks in Kourouma as well, whom I didn’t get to say goodbye to. About half-way through the dance though, Solika and I went to the center of the circle and gave a speech about my leaving, and I was able to give lots of blessings and say thanks to Kourouma as a whole as well as some individuals. By midnight I was exhausted and went on home, in order to wake up before 6 am and finish packing. Friday morning, I had been up for about 5 minutes when some people started stopping by to greet. First to come by were Maminatta’s husband, Madou, and his friend Amadou, on their way to the fields. When they started giving blessings, I just couldn’t help but start crying. Malians are really uncomfortable about crying though and so these two men awkwardly stood up to leave. After they were gone, this kid Brehima, who is about twelve years old, came by. I had given him a straw hat the day before, and he was wearing it when he came to greet me on his way to the fields. He said that my leaving was really not good with him. He said that he had not been able to sleep the night before because he had been thinking about me leaving. And then he gave me a bag of peanuts. Of course that set me off again! Over the course of the morning, many other people came by to say goodbye, several others setting me off again, and all of them just telling me to not cry, which doesn’t help. Several other people came with small gifts as well, all of which were really meaningful. One lady came by with two giant bushels of onions. I ended up being honest and saying that I couldn’t take them on the plane with me; so she took them back and gave me a few coins instead! A neighbor teacher, Diamouthene, brought me mud-cloth hat which was made in his hometown. He said to give it to my mom. Another woman gave me some fabric of this year’s September 22 Malian Independence Day. And my favorite gift: Maminatta and her husband gave me a copy of Thomasi’s birth certificate to give to his namesake! I ended up riding my bike one last time to the main road, and four other people came on two motorcycles with all of my luggage. It started raining again as soon as I had left Kourouma, and by the time I got to the main road, I was soaking wet and covered in mud. It took about two hours for a bus to come by but luckily the sun came out. Solika, Maminatta and her little Thomasi had come on one moto to see me off and they waited with me until the bus came. When the bus came, we had to run to haul all of my stuff on top and I was only able to say quick goodbyes. Driving away was certainly surreal. Even now, I don’t know if it’s hit me that I won’t be going back to Kourouma (at least not for several years).

I have slowly been coming up with a list of parts of Mali that I will miss. This is in random order and I know I’m forgetting some things, but here it is nevertheless:

-The sky – extraordinary sunrises, sunsets and starry nights
-kids both screaming my name out of sheer joy and running in terror
-friendliness of the people, including five minute long greetings with folks you barely know
-Senoufo and Bambara
-mangoes!
-my favorite Malian foods: dege, basii, and rice with peanut butter sauce
-getting so much reading done (86 books and a gazillion sudoku puzzles)
-tea sessions
-sights, sounds and smells of market
-walking down a road and seeing cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens and guinea fowl all together
-balafons, kora, gita and dununba instruments
-joking cousins and bean jokes
-being in an animist village with cool fetishes
-30 cent avocados
-the expressions “Ehh Allah!” and “de!”
-being around so many cute babies all the time
-seeing outrageous clothing that the owner can’t understand: I once saw a shirt that read “Girls Gone Wild Film Crew” and another shirt with a girl’s face that said Christina Aguilera underneath – except the face wasn’t Christina Aguilera’s; bright sparkly hats and other 80’s clothing worn by young adult males
-freshly boiled cows milk with a spoonful of sugar
-going to greet for a couple hours and coming home with tons of onions and more peanuts than could feed a herd of elephants
-Dege-making sessions with Maminatta
-Beautiful fabrics and clothing – colorful basin complets for women and boubous for men
-being able to wear flip-flops year round
-other PCV’s: Mexican nights; movie marathons; true appreciation of a good cold “Flag” beer; occasional splurges on $5 hamburgers topped with egg, fries, mayo and ketchup; people who are going through the exact same thing as you and with whom you can relate
-the sound of women susu’ing (pounding with mortar and pestle) at daybreak
-having 30 kids come by at once to greet (and then promptly chasing them out – my limit is about 5 at a time)
-Djenebou: a little girl obsessed with collecting trash. She would bring me buckets of water in exchange for old bottles. She would ask just about every day if I had any new bottles. For the entire first year I thought she was incredibly annoying. After a while though I came to respect her persistence!
-eating with hands out of a communal bowl (except for spaghetti which is never easy to eat, even with fork and knife)
-going to sleep by 9:30 pm
-my Malian name, Awa (which means Eve) and nickname, Gafu
-one’s trash is another’s treasure: being able to give away broken flip-flops, old cardboard boxes, Newsweek magazines, etc.
-little Oumou and “B”: the two severely malnourished girls with whom I worked with the most. By the time I left, they were no longer in the red or severely malnourished zone (although they were still scared of me). If I had even a tiny bit to do with their weight gain, that makes my entire service worthwhile.
-old men and women who give ten blessings in a row and some of whom still go out into the fields every day
-shooting stars just about every night as I fell asleep under my mosquito net tent
-kids yelling “bon-SOIR Toubabou” at 9 am
-the people of Kourouma: especially Maminatta, Kalilou and Solika

For those who continued to read my blog up ‘til now: Thank you! I really appreciated the comments and I’m glad I could share part of my experience with you. Now I’m off to Egypt for three weeks before heading home to North Carolina, just in time for beautiful fall weather!

Awa