A sudden goodbye

I thought it prudent to wait a while before posting this. Know that everything worked out fine and we are back to training as usual in a different city.

However…

Thursday afternoon, July 1st, after a full day of French class, the last thing on the schedule was a community meeting. All of the volunteers from the different sectors (Secondary Education, Girls Education and Encouragement, Small Enterprise Development, and Health), all get together for casual announcements. The meeting is led by trainees and it is a place where each sector can give a little tid bit of news from their training. The topic of last week’s meeting was to take care of details in planning for our 4th of July party that was, at that point in time, three days away.
In the middle of taking food and drink orders, our Safety and Security, Congo, walks in and says to everyone that he has a really important announcement. He started by saying that the embassy here in Burkina Faso issued a warden message warning of potential Al-queda activity in North. Ouiagouyia, the city in which we were training, was specifically targeted for the kidnapping of westerners. In response to this, Congo informed us that we would be evacuating the city the next day.

Let me describe how I was interpreting this information. Warden messages like this are not rare. They happen all the time. The embassy in Cairo issued several similar warden messages during my semester in Egypt. Sometimes we changed our plans accordingly, sometimes we did not. During my internship in New York City with the Department of State, I had access and time to read, or at least glance at, warden messages issued from embassies around the world. There were always more messages that I was willing or able to read. Basically, the embassy is obligated to report any and all credible information it may receive regarding threats to Americans. In this context, I was not scared or anxious that my personal safety was in immediate danger. However, knowing that the Peace Corps is responsible for 80 volunteers, each living with a separate host family, biking to and from training often at night, in a city that was specifically targeted for kidnapping, I knew that drastic change was in the offing.

That change came in the form of immediate consolidation into a local hotel. We were not able to contact our host families or pack our bags. This was frustrating for me as my house was three minute bike ride from the training center. All 80 volunteers spent Friday night in that hotel with nothing other than what we brought to class that day. I was lucky to split a three-bed room with four other volunteers. I lost the coin toss and had to share the bed. Others slept on mattresses on the floor in the conference room, so I consider myself lucky.

The logistics to set up our training in Ouyiagouya were staggering. Organizing the host families alone must have been an incredible task. Peace Corps needed to find 80 suitable families, train them how to treat the food for sickly Americans, and make sure their house met safety and sanitation standards. There was one amazing man, Siaka, who had spent several months prior to our arrival solely dedicated to this task. Our French classes also required an incredible amount of man-power. Eighty volunteers have French class nearly four times a day in classes of only 3 or 4. That means Peace Corps had to find well over twenty qualified French teachers that could work full-time teaching each class four hours a day. All of these things and more were up and running masterfully before the warden message. After the warden message, they all came to a screeching halt.
Everyone was anxious that night, not about our safety but about our future as volunteers. It was common sense that we would most likely not resume our training in Ouyiagouya (I think I spell that different every time), Knowing this, the next logical question was where and how are they going to be able to train us so that we can be ready to swear-in as volunteers at the end of summer. Organizing host families on such short notice is a nightmare. Finding facilities to hold classes is equally as daunting. So this is where we stand- in limbo.

I am writing this on the 4th of July. Last night was my second night in an air conditioned room with heavy blankets, and a normal bathroom. Actually our A/C was broken the first night but we quickly had the corrected the following afternoon. We have been told that we will be here for at least two weeks. Classes will resume tomorrow at an international school nearby. At this point, they do not know if we will stay in Ouagadougou all summer or find an alternate city to complete our training. We have been told that it is highly unlikely that we will be going back to Ouiyagouia. This means I will most likely never see my host family again. No one was able to say goodbye and I am still unsure if the families fully understand what happened. This is the saddest part about the whole situation. I have talked to my family a few times over the phone. I think it would be much harder emotionally if my French was better, but most of my energy is focuses on accurately communicating to them what happened as opposed to expressing my disappointment for having to leave my new family.

A quick word about the luggage- remembers I said that we were unable to pack our things. We were never able to do so. An unfortunate few had the incredible task of going to 80 different homes, packing up rooms that have been lived in for weeks, loading the bags onto buses, and transporting them to a different city two hours away. It would have taken me at least an hour and much creativity to pack my own things back into my original two backs. I can’t imagine having to do it with someone else’s stuff- eighty times over. They were able to do it and we had our luggage the following day. I can’t express how impressed I was at this accomplishment.

So this ends the story for now. We are temporarily staying in an air conditioned hotel in the New York City of Burkina Faso. I had a good hamburger for dinner last night. Today we are going to an athletic club to celebrate the birthday of our great country. Classes resume tomorrow as usual with no more than a two-day hiccup. I forgot to mention, all of the language teachers, for the time being, are also staying in Ouagadougou- another impressive logistical success. Let’s just say I am thankful that I am not the one making decisions. I am in good hands sitting under an air conditioner as I type this. I can’t complain.