It’s Friday today and I will be an RPCV by the afternoon. An RPCV stands for a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, an acronym famous only to those who live or have once lived in the insulated world of Peace Corps. Going from a PCV to an RPCV means the loss of an identity, an employment, a community, and the gaining of a credential. An ‘I'm done' but also an 'I did it.'
My last week at site was odd and wonderful. My replacement, the guy who will be taking over my site (‘our site’), visited. His name is Ian and he is a timber sportsman! He did timber sports in college, and also performed for disembarked cruise-ship audiences during two summers in Alaska. He once sawed half-way through his finger and then finished the show. A full half-hour of holding his finger together, bleeding everywhere, and running across logs. How much would I have paid to see that? He was also a forestry major, so he has actual experience in our job here: Trees. Between his skills and the talents of our go-getter neighbor 7k away, Shelley, who has a year left, Senegal will be reforested in no time (and Africa, as a whole, saved).
Ian was there for the arrival of the Antor model 640LD diesel cereals milling machine, its installation and the mayhem that ensued. Kids running and screaming. Old women dancing frantically with babies strapped to their backs. There were some stressful moments, but it was very exciting, too. Ian’s into it, I think. He already started planning improvements. An exhaust pipe for the machine, a ticket system to keep track of pots of millet. Most of the work, however, is in the hands of the village and its leaders. And it should go just fine.
There was a dance party, two nights before I left. In honor of the arrival and installation of the machine, a couple of women scrounged some money together to pay drummers to travel by donkey-cart from 6k away. They drummed from 9pm until midnight. This is the first time in two years in the village I saw young women, old women, and young men all dance, if not together, at the same time. Usually only kids will dance. It must have been the drummers that inspired them. They're so good.
The next day I packed up my hut and packed my bags. And then I cried. After showering and eating dinner (final meal: millet with peanut sauce and cassava. Mmm.), my first friend came to say goodbye and the tears came with her. Tears tears tears. Two hours of sniffling under the shelter of dark. I was crying, my 12 year-old hostsister Fatoumbaye was crying, my friend Dieye was crying, and Yata and Baba and others sat there, silent and tremendously uncomfortable. A number of people who came into the compound seemed confused: “Do you all have coughs or something?”
Yadayadayada there have been more tears and goodbyes and today I become an RPCV and tomorrow Kristal, Laura, and I leave on a bus for Mali where we'll be for close to two weeks. From there, Laura and I continue overland through Burkina Faso into Ghana for another two, then we fly from Accra to Paris and then a couple days later from Paris to NY, where I’ll catch a red-eye to SFO. I’m on my way home.
