Ending One Adventure, Beginning Another

I guess it is time to make a blog posting on my leave from Mali and the Peace Corps. For the specifics: I was medically separated from Peace Corps Mali in the end of February 2012. About four months into my service I feel off a building – yes I know, its true – and hurt my wrist. I did not think it was an issue, so I did not go to the PCMO to get it looked at. Fast forward 8 months when a ladder I was on broke and I feel again, landing on my hurt wrist and slicing open my ankle with a rusted nail. After a very interesting trip to the local hospital where I was the new owner of 5 brand new stitches, I went down to Bamako to get it looked at. While I was in Bamako, the news of my wrist was revealed, and after numerous doctors’ appointments, we realized I would have to have surgery on my wrist in America and was medically separated.

Being back in America: For every volunteer, adjusting back to America is different. Especially when a volunteer has been medically separated, the news of going back to America is not only a daunting task, but it is the worst possible thing that could happen to you. To leave the Peace Corps early was, simply, tragic. All of my fellow volunteers understand this notion of leaving before our time because one month after I left, Peace Corps Mali was evacuated due to security issues with the Coup D’Etat and the war up north. I have not put anything on my blog or Facebook detailing the coup or me leaving Mali, because of one simple thing, it was too painful.

Every day since I have been home has been a challenge. I will repeat this again; adjusting is different for every volunteer. Some volunteers leaving after 27 months and weeks of traveling, some choose to leave, and some get forced to beyond their will. Every experience lends to different adjustment patterns and behaviors at home. As I said, I have not updated my blog or Facebook because it is simply too painful. Thinking about Mali, about my family and my fellow PCV’s is a challenge for me. I feel alone in America with no one who can even begin to comprehend what I am going through or what I went through. For me, adjusting sucks. It is hard. Every day I have to force myself out of the house and do something that when I was in Mali, I only wished to do. That’s the strange thing about the Peace Corps. While you are there, you wish to vacation in America, have cheese, great food and all the amenities that American offers. Yet, once you come back, for me anyways, it is like a blank slate. All these things I dreamed about meant nothing to me. I realized I did not have to have electricity, or great food, or air conditioning to make me happy. All I needed was my family and friends. Now, to all of you out there, this may not make since. Yet, all I want is SanKaw back, to be with my Malian family in my hut, gazing at the stars at night, and struggling to make sense of a language I did not fully comprehend. I miss the simple life. I miss people who understand the simple life and who take compassion and gratitude for everything that is unnecessary in life. I miss the time in my life where I could discover who I was and wanted to be, and I miss the people who did not judge me for that. The Peace Corps is an amazing thing because when you are in it, you can be whom you truly are. We always said you have to be a little crazy to be in the Peace Corps; Its true. Who else would do what we do? What we did? Yet, those crazy people who I met where some of the most truthful, beautiful and real people.

What is happening in Mali right now breaks my heart, and if I think about it, about the family I left behind, the family I abandoned, I can not help but feeling hopeless, a failure, and unworthy to have been in their family for 13 months. I have many unkind words for Mr. Sonogo, but all I wish is that his agenda does not hurt my family. I know this is probably not going to happen. I know the effects of this coup will be heard for years to come, and the people who are going to suffer are the common Malian, who are just trying to live their daily lives with a simple grace that no American can understand.

Being back in America is hard. Yet, we all must strive for forgiveness within ourselves to understand we did everything we could while we were over in Mali, and the strength to move forward with our lives, taking Mali with us wherever we go. As for me, I will be moving to Uganda to work with an amazing non-profit organization called BeadforLife. I will be working, as a representative of BeadforLife in Northern Uganda with their Shea Butter project. I am so excited to begin this new journey in Uganda. I am excited to, in a way, start over and give back to this new community of women who make the Shea butter to strengthen the lives of their families.

Many people have negative things to say about the Peace Corps. They say its too much money. They say “how much can you actually do in two years”, they say that the adults who are sent over to volunteer are wasting their time and not doing anything productive. Well, to all of you skeptics out there, I was changed in the Peace Corps. I’m not sure how but I know, for a fact, that it was a change that not only needed to happen, but I wanted to happen. The relationship I had with my village, family and fellow PCV’s taught me more about responsibility, love, friendship, and the meaning of life than any other that I have. Furthermore, I know that I helped, even in a small way, in my village. Although my project never came to fulfillment, when I left, the look in my counterparts and families’ eyes broke my heart, and was worth more than any words could express. I will forever be Nana Traoré. I will never forget Mali, no matter how hard it is to think about.

I wanted to thank you all for your continued support. The love and friendship I have experienced over the last year has been incredible and will never go unacknowledged. I hope you continue to read my blog, because if you haven’t already noticed, I have changed it to continue on with my life in Uganda. “I bora so, I nana so” --- when you leave home, you come home.