season finales lose the plotline in melodrama

It looks as though my stint in Mauritania has come to an abrupt close.

As I prepared for my third year, an anticipated twelve months of national level projects, government official canoodlings, and frequent travel training dates, Mauritania hatched another plan.  One of military juntas, dismantled ministries, and slashed budgets.  In other words, my third year plans ... diminished.

With four precious days left before my required second-to-third-year-trip-home, I consulted my country director and made the difficult decision to close my service.  COS for all you Peace Corps acronym junkies, sea change for everyone else.

In record time, I completed my health clearances, acquired signatures on cancelled housing contracts, finalized project reports, and packed up a year's worth of life in two suitacses and a small box.  Seventy kilos, all told.  A process that usually takes three to five months was boiled down into 3ish% of that, and suddenly I was on a plane to Cincinnati, one-way, thanks for flying, buh-bye.

Not that administrative COS procedures necessarily take three to five months.  But pre-departure processing might.  I quickly scanned my fellow volunteers' online journals like a voyeur, peeking at how they prepared to leave.  To say goodbye to close friends.  To take last pictures of sites, to buy silly trinkets and memorabilia, to make a healthy break with what would soon be their former lives.  From the anonymous setting of the capital, these were luxuries I could not afford.  So, I looked out the port hole window of the plane and blinked a quick goodby to the RIM.

I didn't have the time to warn my family before touching down, so my permanent arrival was a most pleasant surprise for them, met with cackles of glee and violent embraces.  They did not entirely grasp the nuance of my situation.  Sure, I was glad to up into leafy trees, to sleep on a matress, to pet my cat, to drink a beer.  But the speed with which I was extracted from my previous life was ... destabilizing at best.

I continued with my homeleave as planned, meaning after a week of familial jubiliation at "home," I jumped on flights that carried me to DC, Taipei, and Chicago.  I am now several days back in Cincinnati, trying to figure out when and where I'll escape to next.

Admittedly, I have extraordinarily few constant readers, but I'd like to thank everyone who supported me through this intense journey.  There are some who followed my online musings from day one, others who perused occasionally, yet others who found me recently and pored through what I offered on these pages.  There are friends stateside who sent beef jerky, decadent soaps, miniature greeting cards, news, and love in flat rate boxes.  There are volunteers that shared text messages, rowdy parties, rocks and cadeaux and hugs and beetles in my eye.  There are Mauritanians who will never find this page, and if they do, will be unable to read it.  Vous allez me manquer, plus que je peux exprimer.  Or something eloquent like that.  Thank you seems inadequate, but it's what I got. 

Obviously, I can't summarize my service, my admiration, my gratitude in a few, inspirational, pithy statements.  But I did in a 160-some journal entries, which I will leave here as a digital marker for past-me in Mauritania.

Will I go back?  Dunno.  Not soon.  I'm still recovering from the rapid departure.  Chances are, however, that the most stable presence I'll have will not be geographically located.  It'll be somewhere online.

Till then,
e

my writing is increasingly disconnected

This reads relevant.  And sad on several levels in (during?) the time space continuum.  The same story spans several eras, rinse, repeat.

Ever marvel at the fact that "time zone" has little to do with time?  It's mostly geography, I think.

ms. chen said so

he was playing the guitar
serenading one of his friends
his feet were dirty, folded up underneath him on the bed
I sat at the desk and drew his feet

H2O

In Keelung, the air is so thick with moisture, trees sprout roots from their branches.  Exposed, they drink the humidity that drips down my neck.  Water becomes rust oxidizing cranes that lift moldy cargo and drills that rotate through wet earth.  Fast moving clouds flirt with the idea of sprinkles and this country needs a towel.

Juming was landscaped with toxic plants

hunk of rock molded from a mountainous cast
delicate power lines spanning the mouths of leafed valleys
and sandy shores pockmarked with skyscrapers of vertical lives
witness gaudy temples ornament dirty dumpling streets and convenient stores
globalism on a neon island
perfect nature and poison trees

Taiwanese photography

pictures I didn't take:

A line of two dozen scooters boasting an envious palette, lining a busy street of seven elevens and ginger tea. Neon signs of strokes and characters glitter off their pearly painted surfaces, and I quicken my pace to catch up with my guide, always three steps ahead.


His hair breeze blown at the crest of Wai Mu Chan. Behind him, a backdrop of misted harbor and salt crusted rock piercing a blue sky. Rusty ships skate across a calm surface leaving debris and bubbles in their wake. "Do you want me to take a picture of you two?" I laugh openly as his eyes roll at the thought of "pair." We pose artificially leaving awkward and empty in our wake.


Parade! A small man in a shabby white t-shirt mumbles "key" under his breath. Through the bus window, his eyes follow mine follow rain sprinkled trucks garnished in fresh lilies and he says "key" a little louder. Clothing racks dressed in ornate silver cloth and golden embroidery roll over sewer grates and puddles. "Key!" I glance behind me and catch his eye. His lids flutter and ask, "key?" Our gaze is broken by the blare of silver bugles and tassles swinging from pursed mouths and puffed cheeks. Key exits the bus and I absent-mindedly check my map.

le bien, le mal

A friend of mine thanked me the other day.  "You're a queen," he whispered.  Such a classy thing to say.

A beetle crawled in my eye.  Instead of escaping my furiously blinking lashes, it raced back and forth along my lower lid, trying to burrow into the corners of my eye.  Which was painful.  K rescued me, proving that long nails are almost as beneficial as a really good friend.

I swear, in a fortnight, I'm home

I'm guilty. Of false advertising, or something like it. I said I'd be stateside on Aug 30th. Turns out, my flight will not touch down until Sept 7th.

This delay is actually a gift, since my previous itinerary would have forced me to miss the swear in of our new trainees. This long-awaited gala is a celebration of ten weeks of arduous work, a kick-off for a new set of two year commitments to Mauritania. Beverages from Senegal, a rented sound system from Rosso, and imaginative menus designed by half starved trainees with full run of the market and a modest budget.

In short, a must-attend event.

So, consider my bags unpacked, my countdown reset, my anticipation deferred. And yes, some Americans actually use the word fortnight.

Far from urban pressure

Once, I got published. In an online newletter that belongs to this blog. I don't think I ever shared. So, here.


Ain Draham, Tunisia

For hours, we have been snaking along the cliffs of an enormous mountain valley - the kind where pictures come out hazy and ambiguously green. Stubborn trees with mangled limbs and mottled bark cling to the sloping crags; delicate guardrails keep our bus from rolling into whitewashed concrete villas below. Yellow flowers and ash green grasses frame rocky patches bathed in sunlight that drips from orchard leaves and down terraced farms. From the open window, an icy breeze pushes against my eardrums. They are begging to pop against the altitude, not realizing sea level is closer to the bus stop is closer to the airport is closer to no longer on vacation. What do my ears know?

digital cat's out of the bag

Now that my trip home looms so close, I am lapsing into my old ways. The ways of unadulterated consumerism. The ways of bag-lover-dom. Yes, before I ate, slept, lived on the floor; before I could move from one concrete room to another with a quick pack; before my spartan life as a Peace Corps volunteer, I had an affair. With bags.

Purses, clutches, shoulder bags. And my newest addition: computer cases.

Now, I happen to have a laptop which, in my life stateside, needs a swanky home. Not that I have illusions about Nouakchott life: any nice bag is sure to be torn up, stolen, lost or otherwise vanished from me. But how could I resist buttery soft cherry suede, ballistic nylon in snazzy fire red, creamy soft Rawlings leather in classic tan, chocolate with tangerine detail, or this retro number in deep coral?

So what if the cheapest of these bags costs a trip to Atar and back? Or that the most pricey is half a month's salary? These shoulder-riding beauties are calling my laptop, and frankly, she's at the phones.

ps. I should really get to work.