So I guess I've been avoiding writing about my immanent departure from Niger, both here and in my handwritten journal. It's not like I trying to pretend I'm staying here, that's not it, I'm very actively packing, re-packing, and searching out souvenirs and music to send back home. I think what it comes down to is that I don't want to analyze this experience yet, to look back and think about everything I've done, attempted to do, failed to do, never even started.Peace Corps is a strange and wonderful experience. We left our homes, families, and friends, to come live like and with the people of a country we knew nothing about before landing. We learned the language, we integrated, we made friends and found new families. Some of us did work, some didn't, but the fact is just in coming we ALL did something.
Peace Corps has three stated goals: 1) to aid developing countries with their need for trained men and women, 2) to bring American culture and an understanding of Americans to a foreign culture, and 3) to bring that foreign culture and understanding back to Americans at home.
The first goal is 'work.' The other two are 'life.' Peace Corps really should be all about the life part. Yes, it would be great to see volunteers help to develop a country, but, as currently organized and funded it volunteers really have no chance to do anything about the 'development' of a country. Not in terms of buildings or gardens or any of that. What Peace Corps should focus more on is the "ambassadors of America" type of idea. Send Americans out, good examples of Americans to live in foreign places, to introduce new ideas and different ways of thinking. THAT is how volunteers can really make a difference. Help people realize that there is another way of living out there; corruption doesn't have to be rampant, children don't have to die of preventable diseases like malaria, you don't have to have twenty kids. But that kind of change takes a long time and needs constant deployment of volunteers. AND that type of development doesn't produce the numbers.If there's one thing that frustrated me about Peace Corps it's the emphasis on numbers. How many people did you convince to go to school? How many people understand better how to grow meranga? How many will send their girls to school?
Every four months we have to provide the numbers. And you know what, it's all BS. Who can actually tell you how many people are now making Oral Re-hydration Solution for their babies with diarrhea after listening to my radio show? But in order to have funding we have to show numbers, even if they're just fabricated out of thin air.
That mentality needs to change. The idea that you can quantify development and the human condition. I understand the need for oversight and all that, but there are better, more subjective ways to do that (and subjectivity is necessary in this type of field, dealing with humans).
But anyway, this is the exact type of thinking I have been avoiding by not writing as of late. Let me fill you in on the facts of life as they have been:
I''ve moved out of Gaya. Took a Peace Corps car up from Gaya on Tuesday. Did my last radio show the week before and spent the week saying goodbye and passing out my e-mail address, though that's unlikely to get many messages. Check out pictures of my last week. It wasn't all that hard to leave. Some people cry, some get depressed... I guess I'm just not the type to dwell in one place all too long. I'm anxious to get back on the road.I met my replacement. His name is Brian, he's from Massachusets. I think he'll fit in well in Gaya. We had a good time, I spent my last two days showing him around - work, important types, like the mayor and prefet, and of course my friends and where to get good food and the occasional beer. Took him to the border to introduce him to the guards there so he won't have much trouble getting across.
It seems weird now to think I won't be going back because it still feels like I should be going back next week. It's strange to think that I'm leaving this country on a plane saturday morning. When will I see goats as passangers on motorcycles again? Or hear Zarma? It's so satisfying to hear a local language and know what people are saying about you, then to bust in with a comment and watch their floored expression, "You hear Zarma?!" Yes I do.
When will I ever be able to do that again?
So now I'm in Niamey doing paperwork, hanging out with my friends here I may never see again, but that's life isn't it? Things are constantly moving forward, changing. We can't stay still in the present like statues. That's living. I guess in some way I've throw myself into a live that will always constantly be flowing. If I had stayed at home, settled into a job, I would have the same friends, the same city, same house. Maybe the small things would change, but the essence of my life would stay. That can be a comforting and pleasant thing, something I will one day want. But I'm young, this is the time when I can pursue an international career, I can travel, see and do things, develop a world view that I could never settled in one place.
Traveling plans for now:Tunisia - Sicily - Italy - France - Spain - UK - Iceland
My and my buddy's Josh and Will are taking to the air, road, and water on a cross-europe trip. Should be a pretty good time, these two guys have become some of my better friends over the course of the last two years and this will be a great experience to share.
-Route to be Filled in on the way, South to North-
- Original Trip route -If anyone knows of willing people that have places we could crash at or places to see along the way (staying mostly along the coast, traveling north from southern italy all the way across france to spain) let me know.
Happy trails for now
