Evacuation

Evacuation.

Peace Corps has made the decision to "temporarily suspend all [Peace Corps] operations globally and evacuate all of our volunteers."
The work is finished and it's time to go. My world has been turned upside down and I'm left feeling extremely helpless. My heart hurts for all of the people I'm leaving behind to whom I wasn't even able to properly say goodbye. I think about what this evacuation means for them because now my students and school have lost an English teacher and my community has lost a source of aid. I know I wasn't ever going to make monumental change, but I fully embraced every small victory and took every loss as a learning experience. Oh and that secondary project? Yeah that never even came to fruition. It's like I half assedly did my job and instead of improving, I've been forced to quit.

My heart especially aches for my host family who are quite literally my family now. Without them, I don't think I would've been able to do my job. They welcomed me with open arms and treated me like their own. They showed me the ropes of living at my site, fed me every night, and supported me through thick and thin. It was like I had no need to miss my biological family because my family was right there. My host parents are a second pair of parents for me; caring for me and telling me off exactly as if I were their real daughter. My host siblings are now a second set of siblings; supporting me and joking around with me exactly the way that siblings do.

And lastly, all of my friends and neighbors. My friends became like a second set of brothers; looking out for me and teasing me exactly the way that brothers do. My neighbors, looked out for me everyday and made sure that I was ok. And on days when I didn't cook, they made sure I had food to eat. They showed me the right way to hand wash clothes and the best method for cleaning the house floors. My favorite thing though was whenever they'd see me getting tired of pulling water out of the well, they'd come over and help me because we all know how hard it is to pull water from the well. Oh, and they also one day forced me to get my hair braided, let's just say, no one forgot that day!

Guinea is hard, but it's also extremely beautiful. I know my time there isn't up yet, and one day, I'll be back. So, in the meantime I'll be in the US practicing my Maninka so that I can come right back.

Awa, an bé kofé! Ow wo