Back en afrique de l'ouest

Well, here I am again, three years later and with that original five year plan (join the Peace Corps and change careers) checked off as done. I’m writing this from a hotel room in Conakry, Guinea, my new indefinite home. Inexplicably amongst all the Tuareg art in my room hangs a “Bienvenue à bord” lifejacket looking thing. One of these things is not like the other.  Anyhow, my new job as a Program Manager for Health Systems Strengthening begins tomorrow, and while I’m excited about the job, these are my last moments of relative freedom, I’m sure. 

Brief update since the last blog entry: After getting an MPH in Arizona, I spent the last nine months in Madagascar as a Program Management Fellow with an international NGO, and then spent a month in Burkina Faso before taking this job (with the same organization). The other day curiosity about my old haunts in Benin got the best of me, and I sought out some Peace Corps Benin blogs. Some Volunteer from stage 27 (I was in 24) had actually referenced my blog on his, mentioning that I had “quite the rollercoaster ride.” Considering the possible miniscule influence I may have had on said Volunteer and everything I keep hearing about needing to really work on “self-care” and coping mechanisms while in this particular job (because from all eyewitness accounts and based on my own last 48 hours here, Guinea is not an easy place to live), I’m going to devote some more time to blogging. I maintain handwritten correspondence still with a number of close friends and family members, but I don’t often get into the larger picture stuff that I spend a lot of time thinking about. One thing that I simultaneously love and that annoys me about my particular experience abroad is that it affords me a lot of time for reflection. It’s not that I have more free time necessarily, but normal life seems to provide instances where you have no other choice but to be alone with your thoughts – like the hour it took on Friday night for the driver to navigate a roundpoint in which cars were going in two directions. 

 We’ll see how my first week goes. Until next time, a bientot.