Tubaniso is Empy

As the title states, Tubaniso is empty. Well empty, except for me, and a few other transfers still waiting in this fake village until we finally get to leave. While I don't want to rant on how this placed has eaten the souls of many of my fellow Volunteers, just ask my folks for details on that, I did want to spend a paragraph trying to illustrate the exact scene of despair that has become Tubaniso.

This place, as I stated before, eats away at your happiness. Aided by the rain it seems, I am so excited to get out of here. You cannot keep 90 some Americans cooped up for long until people begin to rebel. While we have not rebelled in the physical sense, emotionally everyone has checked out of the place. They give us a per diem to keep us happy, but if there is anything I have learned of this experience, it's that you cannot buy happiness. No amount of money in the world helps when you all you do in the day is wait for a bus to take you into town for 4 hours. We have been reduced to children going on field trips. I can't wait to get out of here.

Now this is not to talk ill of the support that we have received, a lot of the negativity can be blamed on the isolation. The Guinea staff and the evacuation staff did a great job. It's so easy to blame them for our problems, yet in so doing we tend to forget about how stressful life is for everyone, especially the people responsible for catering to the every whims of a lot of frustrated Peace Corps Volunteers. I won't comment on the timeliness of the situation or how it was handled in the "higher" levels, but just now that I will officially have spent one month of my service sitting in the Peace Corps Mali training center appropriately called Tubaniso, meaning town of white people.

Guinea does not deserve what has happened to it. I have kept silent enough in my blog about my personal thoughts, and now it's time to let loose. The Guinean people deserve more. My school in Tormelin deserved a great math teacher. Hell they gave me a house and food, and I sat there for 6 days without even explaining to them why I was leaving. Though I'm pretty sure they understood why. The Guinean people deserve a stable government; they deserve the chance to live their own lives without fear.

For everyone one at home, hold Guinea in your hearts. People are being killed every few days now in the capital. It is a scary situation for all.

Before I sign out, I do want to say I'm excited about Burkina Faso. I know it will be a terrific experience and that I feel I have made the right decision in continuing on. Part of me still yearns though to give my 8th grade and 9th grade classes in Tormelin the math lessons that I was excited to give. I keep thinking that if those events in Conakry never happened, how would I have spent my Halloween in Guinea?

Thanks to all my fellow Volunteers who helped pull each other through such trying times. Thanks to my folks for supporting me through everything. But most of all, thanks to the Guinean people for giving me even the short experience of having the chance to work and live within your community, nothing I could ever do for Guinea could replace what Guinea has done for me. Best of luck to everyone returning to the USA, and also to those continuing on to Senegal, the Gambia, Benin, Mali, Zambia, Botswana, Madagascar, Jamaica, and Liberia.

Vivre la Guinee