Update: After the Coup

Four weeks ago, I would have never imagined that in one month's time, I'd be in consolidation with all of the people in my region for two weeks, evacuated out of Mali, closing my service to become a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and sitting here writing a blog at my best friend's house in Ukraine. So, greetings from Ukraine.

It's amazing how absurd life is. One minute you have an entire life planned out for yourself, and the other minute it's suddenly over. 

On Wednesday, March 21, my friend, Cary, came into Kita to head into Bamako the next day. After he showed up, we all got text messages from Peace Corps warning us about gunfire in Katy, neighboring Bamako, and in Bamako. Cary was advised not to go into Bamako. 

That night, I went to bed thinking the protests and unrest would settle down immediately, like it had in the past...And then at 8 AM, Thursday, March 22, Cary called me to inform me that the military had officially declared a Coup d'etat and the Malian government had been overthrown. The news came as such a shock that I thought he was joking. 

Rehashing the details of the coup, the eventual rebellion in the north, our consolidation and evacuation feels a lot like rehashing the saddening details of a break-up. I will love Mali forever and I will be eternal grateful for all of the lessons the country and its people taught me. 

That Thursday, all of Peace Corps were ordered to be on "Standfast." We were to stay at our sites and hang tight until further notice. Cary, Steph and I were the only ones in Kita during the coup. We checked the news obsessively and anxiously awaited any and all updates from PC and the US Embassy.

The media, and PC, were shocked by Mali's sudden upheaval. Mali was considered Africa's model democracy. In a matter of hours, its government was overthrown, its constitution suspended, the national television station overtaken by the junta, the borders closed, a country-wide curfew imposed, the April 29th democratic election called off, some Ministers, Presidential candidates and Governors arrested and the President, Amadou Toumani Toure, vanished without a trace...not to be found or heard from for weeks. 

While the news was unfolding, I had a bad feeling that the situation would worsen. Not only was Mali's government squashed by a pissed off military, but it left a gaping vulnerability where the separatist groups in the north could easily take over...Which is exactly what happened in the following weeks. 

By Friday, we got the news from PC that we were being consolidated. I worked with Cary, Steph and two Malian staff members to call all of the Volunteers from our region declaring our consolidation by Saturday or Sunday, to my site of Kita, the regional capital. 

Volunteers were confused and angry. Their villagers were even more perplexed because, there, in the small villages, everything was normal and peaceful. The villagers, of course, weren't being barraged with news and they weren't in the epicenter of chaos, like the Volunteers who were stuck in Bamako or the northern regions of Mali. For the next few days, constant gunfire could be heard in the northern region of Mali, and blanketing the streets of Bamako. 

The first day of consolidation blew my mind. Suddenly, I was seriously questioning whether or not I would be able to finish my service in Mali while the questions piled up. When Volunteers arrived in Kita, we were all begging for answers...What did this all mean? What was going to happen to us...What did the future hold for Mali? How could this even happen...to Mali of all places??

Consolidation dragged on. Every text message from PC or the Embassy was yet another chance to glean answers. We were on the edge of our seats every single time our phones beeped. We would read PC emails and text messages together, as a group, tearing apart every sentence our Country Director wrote, wondering what it all meant. And the waiting, wondering and questioning stretched on...

Creative stress relief was a big deal breaker during this stressful and uncertain time. We made a Risk board, ping pong table, cooked family dinners and shot water balloons from the roof of the stage house as healthy stress relief.

We made a Zombie A"coup"alypse movie during our consolidation.

As the situation unfolded, each day it was looking more and more likely that something drastic was going to happen. Our PC staff seemed so optimistic, but many PCVs had that sense of gut-dropping dread that we were leaving. We were consolidated to our regional capitals on March 24 and de-consolidated on April 2. In the middle of the night on April 2, all of the Volunteers in the northern region of Mopti were evacuated and told they were all going home. We were re-consolidated on the morning of April 3. By the afternoon of April 3, we all got the news that the entire country was being evacuated.

After nearly two weeks of consolidation and uncertainty, with days after days in which the 25 or so of us in Kita (in one small house) were not even allowed to leave the house, we finally got some answers - our service in Mali was over.

The rebels in the north took over Timbuktu, Gao, Kidal...cities that they had been fighting for for up to two decades. Most foreign aid was cut off...including the US's foreign aid. And then ECOWAS decided to impose its sanctions, closing the borders, strangulating fuel quantities, cutting off commercial banks. These events led to an impossible situation for PC...and evacuation was the only option.

There is nothing that can prepare you for the news that the life you had planned for yourself was going to be ripped out from under your feet. There is nothing that can prepare you for saying goodbye to an entire city of people while you're numb and so in shock that what's happening isn't even registering. There is nothing that can prepare you for closing a very important and powerful chapter of your life...so immediately, so suddenly, so without warning. But, like I've learned in PC,  you deal with the hand that's been given to you.

We were evacuated from Mali, to Accra, Ghana, on April 8. The buses left almost two hours late, broke down on the way to the airport and the trunk of our bus flew open while on the road, jettisoning luggage across the road...but alas, we made it and were safely evacuated.

Upon arrival to Ghana, Peace Corps Washington flew in special staff to help us with the transition. On Monday, April 9, we started our official "Close of Service (COS)" conference. We spent five and a half days contemplating our options - from direct transfers to other countries to going back to the States to re-doing our Peace Corps service from scratch. Peace Corps put us up in a luxurious, freezing-cold air conditioned ocean-side resort with amazing and delicious meals, a casino and Vegas-style pool.

Imagine going from your village, speaking Bambara, living with the poorest people on the planet to abruptly thrown into an early COS conference in a five-star resort on the ocean in an English-speaking country where you have to make several major life decisions in a matter of days.

Peace Corps handled the evacuation really well. They kept in constant contact with us, sending us important updates and trying its best to communicate as honestly as possible. Our COS conference was...surreal...but it was a great transition to the next stages of our lives. How many of us would continue to live in mud huts without electricity or running water if most of us were going back to America? The ocean-side weather, English speaking and western food were a great way to transition from Peace Corps Volunteer to Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

During our COS conference, we had a group counseling session. During the session, people were visibly upset. We had been evacuated for fewer than 24 hours and there we were talking about how to healthfully handle this new stage of our life. At the breaking point, after several people had started crumbling into soft, vulnerable tears, the counselor compared Mali to our first love.

That's when I left the room.

I've really started to accept the sudden transition and realize that I may not be going back to Mali again for a long time. But there's something absolutely gut-wrenching about comparing Mali, one of the world's top 10 poorest countries, one of the top 10 worst places in the world to be a woman, one of the hardest Peace Corps countries to be a Volunteer, to your first love...the love you'll never forget and always love.

It's because that's exactly what it is.

They say that Africa changes you forever because it's real. You don't get any comforts, cushions with Africa. You go and you live. And the people take you in and change you for the better. They may lie to you (Mali's indirect communicative style), but they live more honestly than we all do in the States. They may be malnourished, but they're the strongest people in the world. They withstand hardship that millions of people can't even imagine. They may be poor, but their culture, their sense of community and family and unity, is intensely rich. Mali is not a place you forget. It's a place that grabs you and devours all of your previous conceptions about the world and teaches you lessons that turn you inside out.

The people take you in like their own. They call strangers their family. They honor you by giving you their family name. They joke with you to show you they love you. They give you their last meal, during a famine. They'd do absolutely anything for their "brothers," their "sisters," their "mothers," their "fathers..." because, to Malians, it doesn't matter the color of your skin, where you're from, who you are or what you've done, you're family...and a family takes care of each other.

Damnit, Mali, I will miss you terribly. Mali, you are my first love and I can never, ever, ever forget you. I'll think about you every day and keep working on the sidelines to give back to you.

I still have so many stories to tell. I will continue to tell them on this blog. I strongly believe in the power of story-telling, of keeping the Malian traditions alive...that's what Malians would do anyway. So, stay tuned. From me, and from Mali...

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe

It don’t matter, anyhow

An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe

If you don’t know by now

When your rooster crows at the break of dawn

Look out your window and I’ll be gone

You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on

Don’t think twice, it’s all right

Saying goodbye. For now.