Peace Corps Mali

Privyet blog readers! Sorry I've been lacking lately.  Lots-o-stuff going on.  But, I did see from one of my fellow PCV Ukraine friends that Peace Corps Mali was recently shut down.  It really hit home with me as I began combing PCV blogs of volunteers in Mali and read their personal stories of playing the waiting game: finding out what was going to happen to them.

Mali is currently undergoing a coup d'etat (a sudden overthrow of the government).  Often times, I live in my own little world here in Ukraine not looking at news.  Horrible, I know; it's true though.  So, as I lay in bed last night {unable to go to sleep}, my heart went out to each one of those volunteers whose life is now forever changed {in a very abrupt manner}.

These are a few blog posts I read that truly touched me and made me think about my past year in Ukraine...and what I would do if something were to happen and cause us to have to leave so abruptly.

A good overview of the situation: here
Summary of a PCVs timeline & how PC handled everything:  here
An overview of a PCVs entire time {summed up in 3 entries} in Mali: here
Saying goodbye: here

One of the first things some of these posts made me think of is how utterly spoiled I am.  Yes, I signed up for PC.  But, we sometimes refer to Peace Corps Ukraine as Posh Corps Ukraine.  It's not Africa.  It's not South America.  It's not Asia.  Yes, we have our own trials here, but still.  I'm not faced with 115 degree temps where I have to fetch my own water {although the -25F temps we experienced kind of make up for it a little...}.  I have a giant supermarket about 100 yards from my front door.  I have incredibly fast internet.  I don't sleep under a mosquito net.  I have a washing machine {or a washing agitator as it should more properly be called}.  I live an incredibly comfortable life with hot water and a flushing indoor toilet.  But, if push came to shove, I was willing to go wherever Peace Corps wanted me.  I knew in my heart it would be Ukraine and I was right.  I knew 8 years ago that I would come back to this country I grew to love.

One of the other things that fascinated me reading some of those blogs is how utterly different our Peace Corps experiences are.  Even here in Ukraine, my youth development work is completely different from one of my friends youth development work in a village.  In Mali, the volunteers met under a tree for 8 hours of language lessons every day.  In Ukraine, we plastered the walls of our teacher's apartment from floor to ceiling in verb charts, conjugations, vocabulary, etc. I wonder...in Mali, did they use verb charts and tape them to their tree each day? :)  Seriously.  Our experiences are so{ooo} different.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those volunteers and their communities they left so suddenly behind.  I can't imagine the emotions that every one of them is going through.  Jessica made a great summary, that I'll end with:

"The people of Mali are kind, silly, respectful, patient. They hate conflict, break into dance when they hear music, are afraid of toads, and laugh and smile no matter how terrible their teeth are. Sometimes their children have the startling wisdom of grown-ups, and their grown-ups have the infectious spirit of children. There certainly have been times when I longed for America. Here, their methods are outdated, their food is monotonous, their transport is literally hell on a set of wheels, and their 9 month-long heat wave makes you wish for death at times. But some things are unique to and only to Mali. What is happening right now is unfair to the people of Mali. They deserve a non-corrupt government, they deserve opportunities, they deserve peace. They don't deserve this. Please hope for the best for Mali."

Sending lots of love and happy thoughts to Mali.  And almost Happy American Easter :)
Love love, Lyd