Peace Corps Connectpowered by the National Peace Corps Association

By Caron Alarab
(Guinea 2006-2008)

When I think back on my volunteer experience in Guinea, West Africa, one four-word phrase will always stand out: “We are being evacuated.” In a way, most Peace Corps volunteers are lucky to have never heard this. The sadness of saying an unexpected good-bye, the stress of quickly packing, the fear of never seeing your site again, are all experiences that I would never wish upon another volunteer.

For the other 105 volunteers and I who were evacuated from Guinea following civil unrest in January 2007, the sadness, stress and fear didn’t stop at its borders. For weeks we waited at Toubani So, a training center just outside of Bamako, Mali, hoping strikes would cease and trying not to think of the worst case scenario: we can’t go back.

As downtrodden volunteers bailed, older volunteers closed their service, and others busied themselves with a generous per diem, something unprecedented happened. Between casual cafeteria convos, chatty bus rides en ville, and heart-to-hearts among hut clusters, each of us connected with volunteers from different regions, different stages and different sectors. Cool coastal volunteers connected with hot desert dwellers, G8ers befriended G12ers, and agfo, health, small biz and ed swapped the craziest stories from their service. By the end of the month, it was like there was no agro-forestry sector, no Fouta region, no G9s or 10s,: there was just G-Evac.

We were bonded by a common emotion and a unique opportunity to learn from each other in a time of grief and doubt. And when I think back to Toubani So, despite the evacuation, I can’t help but smile and remember my own heart-to-heart with a volunteer of a different sector and a healing perspective. . . .

It was mid-January 2007 and Guinean teachers were breaching the second week of an unlimited nationwide strike. The teacher’s union was protesting for better pay by skipping school and all education volunteers, like my husband Eldon and I, had been instructed to do the same. It had been an exhausting day as we had hiked with our small business development site-mate, Murph, to a secluded waterfall three hours outside of Dalaba. After dinner, I collapsed on my straw mattress, tucked in the mosquito net and read a tattered copy of Stephen King’s “It.”

An hour later, I had just drifted off to a mefloquine dreamland when Murph’s voice called from the bedroom window. We got up, met her at the door and felt our jaws drop as she uttered those four fateful words.

It was a sleepless night and I was a zombie the next day as we prepared for our forced departure. After packing our backpacks, locking up the rest and making an inventory of donations, I called my counterpart. Despite my fluency in French, I still stumbled as I told him we had a conference in Mali and I didn’t know for how long. We asked neighbors to watch our place for a couple weeks and I never said goodbye to the faculty at my school or to any of my 200 students.

The next day a dusty white SUV picked us up. Two rough nights later, I crossed the Guinea-Mali border in an even more cramped dusty white bus of chatty PCVs. When I stepped into the cluster of thatched roofhuts at Toubani So, I embraced fellow G12ers I hadn’t seen since training, but was otherwise occupied with old fashioned, middle class American guilt.

How could I have left my students? What if I never went back and got a chance to explain? How can Peace Corps expect me to truly live at the level of the people I serve if they can just helicopter me out anytime strikes become violent or the military gets aggressive?

These questions plagued me, and I carried them with a heavy heart for weeks. I saw my hopelessness in other volunteers, so I didn’t seek their solace at first. I assumed we would all have the same depressing perspective and pessimistic ideas: we’re never going back, I’ll never see my Guinean family again, I never should have taken my time in Guinea for granted.

Then, one night, in the warmth of a three-person hut, Murph’s friend and stage-mate Tosi snapped me out of my self-centered funk. Our sites were in the same region and our stages were only months apart, but being from different sectors, she and I had never had a deep conversation before that moment.

I rapidly poured my heart out and she slowly shook her head. Her tone was calm and sure as she told me not to worry about what my community thought and not to be hard on myself.

“This is an important time for Guineans,” she said with a peaceful firmness. “They’ll understand why you left and they won’t hold it against you.”

When I left her hut a short time later, I felt more at peace with myself and vowed to make it back to Guinea one day, to see my community again, face-to-face. Tosi made me realize that my community still appreciated the time they had had with me, even if I didn’t stay with them through the hardest times. And while I thought everyone would resent me for leaving, this savvy G11er showed me that the Guinean people were making a statement to their government in a time of need.

How several other RPCVs and I found our way back to Guinea, reinstated, and eventually trained post-evac stages is the subject for another story. But since the 2007 evacuation, consolidation, and suspension of the Peace Corps Guinea program, I have never forgotten that slice of quality time with a fellow volunteer of a different sector, the healing clarity of a different perspective, and the power of G-Evac.