I am in Morocco! I flew into Casablanca without a hitch, even getting in a little before schedule. And then the problems began. My friend Colleen and I had arranged to meet outside of baggage in the airport since I was supposed to get in a couple hours after her, but she was nowhere to be found. I searched for a good 20 minutes or so before realizing that her flight had been delayed....for 4 hours. Good seeing as how I hadn't been able to find her, bad seeing as how we were supposed to check into our hotel shortly. Slightly before panic set in she came through the gate and we hugged and went to get some money. Unsuccessfully. Apparently all of the ATMs at the airport hate us. So we exchanged some cash and headed into town. Our hotel was fabulous, easy to find, and a great comfort after the debacle at the airport. We went out to explore for a while, then came back and slept.
The next morning we had a mission: get money. We failed at our mission. Apparently all the ATMs in Casablanca hate us. We wandered around for literally hours, trying at banks and hotels for some way to get money, finally going back to ours, our small little budget hotel which to our great surprise was able to help us out. Now that we weren't panicking about going broke and being stuck indefinately with no money we went to see the one sight in Casa that we wanted to: the Hassan II mosque. It was really big, really elaborately decorated, and actually allowed us infidels inside to look.
Now that we were done with that one thing in Casa, taking into account that the city appeared to regard us with loathing, we set out for Marrakesh.
Marrakesh loved us! First of all we were finally able to get money, but even better: the city was a bustling sensory experience: tons of color, spicy scents, music....it was fantastic! We walked around the square and market all the time, checking out all the wares and goodies, watching the snake charmers and musicians, and fending off women doing henna and vendors selling everything from spices to fresh squeezed orange juice to silver jewelry to leather everything to rugs to clothes to everything else. And yes I bought some shoes.
After Marrakesh we headed to Essouira on the coast to relax a little. For a few days we wandered around, walked the beach, and ate fresh seafood. Once we were completely relaxed from that we headed back up north to Rabat. Rabat was really nice. It had the feel of a functioning city that was just very comfortable with itself. Whereas Marrakesh had felt a little divided, with one part of town a little stuck in the past and the newer part of town trying so hard to be like a hip western city, Rabat just really seemed to have it together while still having some beautiful sights. While there we went up to the kasbah overlooking the sea and also checked out an old ruins on the edge of the city with some Roman, some Islamic influence, took lots of pictures and even did some sketching.
After Rabat we headed off to Fez. I was kind of expecting Fez to feel a lot like Marrakesh, but it really didn't. Once again we stayed in the medina (old town), but this time it felt like it was still functioning for more than just tourists. On our first afternoon there was a parade through the streets complete with horsemen, camels, musicians, singers, and dancers, and we were able to watch it all from the roof of our hotel. The next day we wandered through the tiny narrow streets, getting out of the way for pull-carts and mules overloaded with goods and supplies (the streets are too narrow for cars to be allowed) and at one point got so lost that a couple little boys had to help us find our way back to the more easily identifiable part of town. In the hopes of that not happening again, we tried to stick with more recognizable routes from then on and on our trip to the Jewish quarter we even allowed ourselves the luxury of a bit of a guide. He took us around, and then, surprise, surprise, we ended up at a big shop full of goods they were just looking to unload on us poor unsuspecting tourists. Little did they know how many times we had already fended off such attempts at parting us with our hard-earned money, and little did they know just how little of that money we actually had at our disposal. Of course, little did I know just how good these guys actually were. Now I don't want you to think that I don't love my beautiful, gorgeous, lovely Moroccan rug, but I was shell-shocked for the rest of the day that I actually bought it. It felt like it happened so fast, but I know it didn't. We were probably in that shop for over an hour, drinking mint tea, learning about the different types of rugs and materials, but when they actually tried to start selling us stuff it just happened so quickly. I had noticed my future purchase at the very beginning, so to be polite I said I might be interested. He wrote down the expected price. I then wrote down my insultingly low offer. He countered. I didn't budge. He countered. I didn't budge. And then he said ok. Oh my god. I couldn't believe he actually said ok. So now I have a rug. It's beautiful and I love it, but what on earth am I going to do with it? I don't even have a place to live yet! C'est la vie...
I did finally get over my shock (Colleen did, too: she also got a similar, though smaller rug), which is good, since we had another day to enjoy Fez before heading north to Chefchaouen, which is where we are now. This place is stunning. It's almost unreal how beautiful it is. It's set on the slope of the mountains and in the medina where we are all of the buildings have been coated with a blue-tinted lime wash. We've been seeing postcards all over Morocco that have pictures taken here, but it's so striking here in person. The other night we were wandering around and I looked down this little side street that was just gorgeous and it took me a minute to realize that, no, it wasn't the lighting that made the blue look so pretty, it was just the color of all the walls.
We're now heading off to Tangier for our last little bit in Morocco and then heading across the straight into Spain. It's getting obvious how close we are to Europe with all the other tourists and the menus translated into French and Spanish and sometimes even English. Oh yea: the food here is amazing! We've had tons of couscous and tajine (slow-cooked meat and veggies in a spiced, savoury sauce) and pasteries and flatbread sandwiches. I don't think we've had anything that I didn't love. Last night we decided to fix a simple little feast of flatbread and cheese and olives and even that was amazing. Mmmmmmmmmm....
Here's hoping that Tangier treats us as well as the rest of the country (Casa nothwithstanding), and we cross into a new adventure in Spain soon.

Today is my last official day as a Peace Corps volunteer. Tomorrow I will wake up, not at the Peace Corps house, but at a friend's, because I will be an RPCV. The R stands for Returned, and, even though I don't actually leave Mali until Monday morning, and am traveling for 10 weeks before returning to the US, returning is what I suppose I'm doing. It makes me nervous. My time here in Mali has been this amazing, enlightening, challenging, slow-paced while still intense two years. I will be returning to an America that I may not altogether recognize, and I know that I've changed at least a little. I suspect more than just a little, but I suppose I won't actually realize how much for quite some time.

I left my village on the 28th of August. It was really hard to say goodbye, even though I had kind of been looking forward to that day since I got back from Ghana. Due to the loss of my project I had been more than just a little depressed about the course my service had taken, but that didn't really change the attachment I felt to the people in my village. I started packing way ahead of time (big surprise to those of you who know me well), sorting what I would give away to friends in village, what I would leave for friends in Peace Corps, and what I could actually fit in my bags to go home. Since I'll be traveling for so long before getting back to the US I am only taking one bag with me, and that has necessitated a lot of purging. I also burnt a lot of stuff...mmm, fire.

When that Saturday actually arrived, though, I wasn't ready. For one thing, I thought I wasn't going to be leaving until the afternoon and the car showed up in the morning. For another, I hadn't come to terms with the fact that I was leaving, probably for good. Since I am not being replaced in Drametou by a new volunteer, I was moving all of my stuff out and thankfully being helped by a car and driver from Peace Corps. When they showed up, I said final goodbyes to as many friends as I could, but many were still out in the fields working, as they had intended to come in in the afternoon to see me off. I'm not entirely sure which would have been harder: not getting to say goodbye to everyone, or having to say goodbye to everyone. Regardless, I was upset and still in a little bit of shock as I pulled out of village, silently crying in the back seat.

I didn't actually have much time to dwell on my loss, as we promptly got stuck in the mud. Really stuck. As in I could see the growing panic in the driver's eyes, thinking we were never going to get out. Thankfully, a group of men from the nearby village came to our aid, and after a couple hours of digging, scraping, and cutting branches to put under the entrenched tires, we were free. Bakoye cew: i ni ce, i ni baara ji. By that point in time I had stopped crying, and since they wouldn't let me help (it was muddy, and I was a white woman wearing a complet, and therefore completely inept), and I knew that even if we were stuck for the night it would still be okay, I admit I found the whole situation kind of comical. The downside was that I also felt guilty: the car wouldn't have gotten stuck if it hadn't come out to my village to pick me up and had all of my crap loading it down. But, we did get out, and from that point on it was pretty smooth sailing, or at least as much as it can be on the road between Bafoulabe and Kita. In Manantali we unloaded most of the stuff. I left all my furniture, a lot of my clothes, and various other small things there for a new volunteer that wasn't immediately replacing a previous volunteer. Best of luck in the next 2 years Jorie! We also unloaded a bunch of soak pit construction supplies for another volunteer who is planning to take advantage of the benefits that my village didn't and restart the project in Manantali. I took one last look at my favorite place in the country, the stage house overlooking the river, and briefly mourned the loss before climbing back in the car and heading to Kita for the night. I parted with the car and driver the next morning and spent a few days moping in Kita before heading into Bamako myself on my final stint in Malian public transport. Of all my frequent routes on transport, this is/was by far the easiest. The bus was basically on time, not too crowded, and in good condition running on a paved road. Of course, there were also frequent stops to pick up more people along the way, a handful of those people sitting in the aisle, a few crying babies, a few people getting sick, and the unavoidable midday heat, but nothing unmanageable or out of the ordinary.

I actually came in to Bamako a day earlier than I had originally planned since my friend Alaric was going to be leaving a day earlier than I had thought. I'm glad I did, because it turned out that there was a concert that night at Tubaniso, the training facility just outside of Bamako, by Vieux Farka Toure that I got in just in time to go to. When I was in training out there we didn't get any private concerts like that, so I chose to consider it a little bit of a send off for me as well.

The next few days were a whilwind, filled with lots of hanging out, going out on the town in Bamako, and reminiscing. On Friday, 3 September the new stage of volunteers swore in at the embassy in the midst of a huge rainstorm. In the few hours between my morning run and leaving for the embassy, several feet of water accumulated in the streets, and my 2 minute walk from the house to the bureau to catch a car resulted in a full soaking. When I arrived at the embassy I literally wrung out the bottom of my skirt. At least it wasn't too hot I guess. There were a few short stints of sunshine in the afternoon, but it was still pretty cool and drizzly when we went out with the new volunteers to celebrate that evening. As in previous years it was a good party, and then it was over and I spent the next few days recovering from the sleep deprivation of the previous few.

After the weekend's festivities I had to buckle down and get the last of my work done. I had unknowingly chosen the worst week ever to try and close out my service. Officially, today is my last day. However, today happens to be the last day of Ramadan for most of the world, and the day after the the last day of Ramadan for Mali (don't ask me why, I'm still a little unsure), so Bamako is pretty much non-functional both yesterday and today. Oh yea, and Monday was Labor Day, which means our office was closed then, too. So I only had Tuesday and Wednesday to get the last two years wrapped up. Throw into that mix the fact that all of those new volunteers that just swore in were moving into their villages this week and you have a seriously reduced number of staff actually in Bamako on those two days and you get a somewhat panicked me. Fortunately I was still able to get everything taken care of at the bureau and now I am just waiting. I've gotten a lot of practice waiting in Mali.

So.....

Inchallah, I will fly out on Monday morning for Casablanca. My friend Colleen will meet me there and we will embark on 6 weeks of traveling in Morocco and then up through Spain and France to London. Once in London we'll catch up with our friend Kelly who currently lives and works there and then Colleen will head back to Spain and fly to America, I will fly to Mumbai/Bombay, and Kelly, well Kelly will go back to life as normal in London. In India I will meet up with my friend Jen who also just finished up her Peace Corps service in Mali, and we will travel around for a month before getting back stateside.

Here's to Mali, here's to travel, here's to the world! Oh yea, and i sambe sambe!

In my last entry I mentioned an upcoming trip to Ghana, and it was epic. But first a little bit of background information:
Immediately prior to this trip was probably the low point of my entire Peace Corps service. As many of you know, I have been slowly working towards a big (or small, depending on your perspective) project in my village, and we were finally to the point where funding was going to be coming through in about a week. I was really looking forward to having a visible, tangible result from my 2 years in Mali, but as time went on it became clear that I was far more invested in this project than my village. One of the things that I respect most about Peace Corps is its focus on sustainable development, and I no longer felt that completing this project was going to have sustainable results. So, after a few really difficult days of deliberation I made an executive decision to pull the funding. It was one of the hardest, most heart-wrenching things I have ever had to do, and my village was (and still is to a certain extent) very upset with me, but I still feel that I made the right decision.
Needless to say, I was really looking forward to my vacation in Ghana, and it fortunately lived up to my expectations.
The first step of our adventure was to take an overnight bus through Burkina Faso and down into Ghana to the city of Kumasi. There is a PC house there that we were able to spend the night at, bathe, and then continue down further south. After being on a bus for about 30 hours straight it was a welcome relief with the added bonus of getting advice from a current PCV in Ghana (thanks Mikey!).
Our first stop was in Accra, but it was really just a stop-over in a failed attempt to get our Burkina visa extended and save some money, but we had a lovely night at the YWCA and our first Fan Ice - so good. From there we went to the beach at Kokrobite, which was nice, but not enough to get us to stick around for too long, so our next planned stop was in Apam.
Oh Apam. I had gotten this idea in my head that I wanted to stay in an old slave fort. In our guide books it says that this is possible in a couple of different towns along the Ghanaian coast, and Apam seemed like one of the cooler places to do it, so we headed on down. When we arrived it was just gorgeous - I'm talking French Riviera gorgeous. The fort was at the top of the hill overlooking the fishing harbor that was full of big, brightly painted boats, and the aging stone building was just as I had imagined. Creepy history aside it was kind of romantic. The three of us each had our own individual rooms on the top level of the fort with a breezeway in between where we could all hang out together, so we relaxed for a while then went down to check out the town. After getting a little harassed along the harbor (as expected) we headed back up to our refuge on the hill and started settling in for the night. We were having a lovely game of rummy accompanied by a fine box of Don Simon sangria when it became increasingly clear that the 4th room in the fort, the only one not occupied by us, the one right next to my room and opening out into the breezeway where we sat playing cards, was being rented out by the hour. Yup, a couple of times. Awesome. So, okay, we weren't the only ones to find the fort setting a little 'romantic' but we did our best to deal with the situation (I did have to make a *little* fuss), and the next morning we had the fort to ourselves again and all was well and beautiful. But we didn't stay for another night...
Next on the agenda was Cape Coast. A lot of other volunteers had very good things to say about it, and I have to agree. It was a nice town on the beach, we had a nice room at the Red Cross hostel with good access to the rest of the town, there was good seafood overlooking the water, and, perhaps most importantly, it gave Jess an opportunity to flesh out her obsession with the Obamas visiting Ghana. Nothing really remarkable happened while we were there, other than lovely site seeing, and then we went up to Kakum NP to the north.
Kakum was pretty amazing. It's famous for its canopy walk, but we did a little extra and spent the night in the park. Since the park closes at 4pm and you have to be spending the night to stay any longer, we had the whole park to ourselves for more than 12 hours, which was pretty cool. We also realized that we were really good at being cheapskates. Instead of splurging on a lunch in the park (about $4) we walked down the road and spent about 1/5 of that, and because we had thought it would be even more expensive than it was we also brought food with us for dinner. Well done us. The next morning we got up relatively early and took another guided walk through the park and then headed off to the beach again.
This time we went to a highly recommended eco-lodge that's kind of out of the way called the Green Turtle Lodge, and basically fell in love with it. Joelle essentially spent every waking hour in the surf, while Jess and I took some breaks for books, food, and bathing. We met some other travelers and shared stories, walked into the nearby fishing village for lunch every day, and just relaxed for a while. We also made some tentative plans to open our own eco-lodge next door, thus having this be our day to day life.
From the Green Turtle we headed back up to Kumasi, where I got to have a short visit with my old site-mate Brooke, who is living there for a while. We also went to the zoo, where I got spit on by a chimpanzee and actually ran into some of our friends from Mali who were also traveling in Ghana. Kumasi was mostly just a nice place to relax (since our time on the beach had been so stressful), do a little laundry, etc. and then we took a little side trip to a crater lake nearby before continuing on up north.
Our final big stop in Ghana was Mole NP. On the way to and from there we were able to stay at another PC house in the town of Tamale, which was really nice and convenient (thanks again Ghana PCVs for sharing!), but Mole was infinitely better. You always hear about all this great wildlife in Africa, but after a year and a half here I had hardly seen any, so I was skeptical of the claims of all these baboon/monkey/warthog/antelope sitings. They were all true! It was crazy! The warthogs were probably my favorites, running around with their little tails in the air, grunting with several little ones following behind. The baboons were really cool, too, but also a little scary. They weren't afraid of people at all, going so far as to steal the ketchup bottle literally off our table at lunch one day. And then there were the elephants. Our first full day there we saw 2 of them from a distance and it was very cool. Our last night there we had a guide take us out away from the hotel and slept on a platform next to the watering hole. We weren't able to really see anything because it was so dark, but you heard all the jungle-y sounds and then we had to start hiking back out at about 2am to catch the morning bus, along with our armed guard. On the way back in we were almost back to the hotel when our guard signalled us to stop walking and then made us start backing up slowly because there was this massive elephant less than 100m away, staring us down. I was grateful it didn't charge or anything, but that didn't stop my heart from leaping into my throat until we starting walking again. We hadn't gone 50m before we had to stop again. A bunch of antelope were running across the road ahead of us, and as we slowly continued after they had passed we saw another elephant that had come along. It was pretty spectacular.
Afterwards, we headed back to Tamale, got our stuff together, did some last souvenir shopping and then got transport back to Mali. Just in case you thought our adventure was over, though, we got to see yet another elephant up close right after crossing the Burkina border. It was standing in the opposing traffic lane as we rode by in our bus. Crazy!
So, our Ghanaian adventure was over, and it was a great one.
I didn't go straight back to site, because we were having our 'Close of Service Conference' in Bamako right after the trip anyways. Instead a made a quick stop in my friend Gemma's village and then went the rest of the way to Bamako with her. The conference was good, mostly because it was one last chance to see all the other volunteers that I came to Mali with almost 2 years ago. I still can't believe it's been that long already, but time flies when you're sitting in village with no running water!

I ni fama....(it's been a while)

I'm surprised that it's been so long since I have written something here. I have had internet on multiple occasions, and a lot has transpired over the last 4 months.

Following the festivities of the holidays, I sequestered myself in village for about a month to try and get some things accomplished, and to prepare myself, my hut, and my village for my parents' visit. The most notable thing about this time was that I was able to start a Water and Sanitation committee with help from my Director. Since then (for the most part) we've been having bi-weekly meetings to try and improve conditions in Dramétou.

As for my parents' visit: They came to Mali for 2 weeks in February and I am so proud of them! I came into Bamako to meet them and they were just thrown into West African craziness from the very beginning. One of the things I convinced them to do on their very first day in Africa was go to a market and pick out some wax print cloth to have made into traditional complets (outfits). I think Mom was more into it than Dad (big surprise!), but he was a trooper nonetheless. We walked around the part of town that I am most familiar with, met a lot of people in the Peace Corps office here that I work with, and adjusted to being in Mali together. It was certainly more of an adjustment for them than for me, but, well, you know how in middle school when you saw your teacher at the grocery store it threw you for a loop? That's a little bit what it was like for me seeing my parents in Mali.

After 2 nights and 1 day in the most westernized city in Mali, I once again pulled the rug out from under them and we left Bamako to head to site. Since Peace Corps was sending a car that way already, we were able to hop in and make the trip a little less foreign. We had an overnight stop in Manantali, which made me very happy since it is probably my favorite place in country, and then headed further north the next morning. In true Malian fashion, even though we were in arguably the most timely, safe, and reliable transport in Mali, with a great driver to boot, we ran into an extended delay merely 9 km away from Dramétou: the infamous ferry. As some of you may remember, I've run into problems with the ferry in the past, but this was possibly the most frustrating encounter, and amplified by the fact that I was feeling responsible for the well-being of Mom and Dad as well. Basically the ferry engine was broken, and had been for some time. However, they were still able to use it by having half a dozen guys with bamboo poles pull it across the river. Very very slowly. If only that were the only problem here....but no, it was also windy which meant that it was going to be even harder and slower. We ended up waiting for about 6 hours before the driver started to get nervous about being able to reach his final destination and I made a bit of a fuss as a result. (Talk to Mom and Dad if you need details....) We finally got across, got to Dramétou, and Mom and Dad got a taste of my little African life! We had a little dance party, some thatching of huts, some celebratory slaughtering of animals, some cooking of my favorite Malian foods and a few of my Mali-ized American ones, some sleeping under the stars and some long awaited time just hanging out with my parents. There were definitely stressful moments, since I was the only translator between them and the village and 3 people inevitably have more needs than I alone do, but I think it went really well and I am so happy that I was able to share Dramétou with them.

The trip back to Bamako was no more or less eventful than the trip up, but certainly different. It started out with a 9km donkey cart ride to the river, since there's really no other transportation option available for multiple people, then my friend Mori was waiting to take us across the river in his pirogue. We got the car the next 6km to Mahina with no problems, got our train tickets no problem, and, for the first time ever, the train was on time and we boarded for our 10 hour trip back to the city. Phew. If the return was any more difficult than the trip out it was the exhausting nature of 10 straight hours of being en route, and I know we were all really happy when we finally arrived safely in Bamako.

I allowed no time for them to catch their breath before we were on the road again in the morning, this time with a hired driver and headed east. The rest of the trip was up into Dogon country with side trips to Djenne to see the famous mosque and Mopti to get a slightly different glimpse of the bustle that is Malian commerce. For Dogon itself we had a great guide and a great group of people and then it came to an end and we headed back, once again, to Bamako.

So, I give myself, but especially Mom and Dad a big pat on the back for a good 2 weeks. We saw a lot of different aspects of the country, took a lot of different types of transport, met a lot of different fantastic people, and did a lot of catching up. Yay! And then we were exhausted...

After Mom and Dad took off to go back to the states, I took off to go back to village. Another month of the normal day to day life was enhanced by these committee meetings, and we put together a project to improve the situation. There's still some stuff that we need to hammer out, and there have been a few problems recently, but I'm *hoping* that we'll be able to pick it up in mid-June when I head back from........Ghana!
Yep, I'm going to Ghana next week for 3 weeks. I'm really excited because I haven't taken a real vacation since last September. Yes, I've left site for breaks many times, but this trip should include lounging on the beach, visiting my old site mate in bustling Kumasi and going on a mini safari to look at elephants. Woohoo!

The holiday season has come and gone, and it was fun while it lasted! It all kind of started as soon as I came back from America at the beginning of October, because everyone was excited to see me and hear about the wedding and my family, and has just continued on and on until now, alternating between Peace Corps/American parties and Malian ones. The next celebration was my birthday at the end of the month, which I came into Bamako for (as it was the big 25) and went out dancing until all hours of the morning. I followed that up with a Halloween party in Kita. I was a superhero, of course, and, yes, you can get red spandex tights with rhinestones in a Malian market. After that I had a short window of time back in village before leaving again for Thanksgiving. Every year Peace Corps volunteers do a sort of pilgrimage to Sikasso, otherwise known as 'the land of plenty,' for Thanksgiving, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin and apple pies. This year was a little more complicated than most though. This year Tabaski, the biggest holiday of the year in Mali, was on the 28th of November, just 2 days after American Thanksgiving, which means there were a lot of volunteers (myself included) that wouldn't be able to attend. So we just moved Thanksgiving to a Monday. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and while some of you might horrified at the sacrilege, it was totally, deliciously, worth it.
After stuffing my face in Sikasso, I did my 2+ day journey back to site and arrived just in time to prepare for Tabaski, complete with henna on my feet and donning the special bezon clothing. Once again I stuffed my face and then went out and watched my village dance the night away.
After Tabaski was over I expected there to be a lull in village, like last year, but this was not the case. Mid-December we hit a week of part after party. Last year we didn't have anything like it, but first there was a party 'because the men fixed the road' and then we had a special chicken lunch to celebrate the 15-month mark of my service and then we had an engagement party for my host-neice and then we had another party 'because people are happy!' It was an exhausting week. That's right, all of that happened within a week. Talk about a lot of special food and a lot of dancing.
Finally, after all of that Malian celebration, I had a little bit of time to relax, and then I had to start getting ready for Christmas. I headed down to gorgeous Manantali and had a lovely Christmas by the river, complete with barbequed pig, cookies with rainbow chip frosting, and hot chocolate (yes, most of my delight in this holiday season involves food). After Christmas was over I headed into Bamako then the city of Koulikouro for New Year's celebrations, and met up a few friends for a lovely night of music and games with just a few people.
Now I'm getting ready to head back to village in the morning, and after all this partying, I am looking forward to a few weeks of settling into village, trying to work on some projects, and preparing for Mom and Dad's visit. Yay!