Goodbye Madagascar

I'm sure most of you have heard by now that Peace Corps evacuated from Madagascar. I've been waiting to post on this since I was pretty emotional and not really looking forward to answering all the questions on what I'm doing next. It's been a little over two weeks now since I first got the news and I still don't know what I'm doing with my life besides putting off making real decisions for as long as possible.

The week leading up to our evacuation was pretty bizarre. It started off with me leaving Andina and heading to Tana for a week long training preparing for the incoming environment volunteers. The day I left things started heating up in my banking town. In fact, I think I just missed getting trapped in Ambositra due to road blocks put up by the strikers to keep out the military (this may sound a lot more dramatic than it actually was, I'm pretty sure the road blocks were just dumpsters). Our training continued as planned for a few days but the whole time we kept hearing reports about strikes happening all over the country. Ambositra eventually became violent and was temporarily made a red zone for volunteers, which was crazy to hear since it's such a tiny town, and a town I would have had to go through to travel anywhere outside my site due to the lack of roads in Madagascar.

Just after I finished putting together all my lesson plans and materials for training we got word that trainees wouldn't be coming after all. The military had taken sides in the conflict and was refusing to control strikes and looting so I'm sure Peace Corps made the right decision but I feel for all those incoming trainees...apparently they'd made it all the way to Philly for staging before being told they wouldn't be going to Madagascar after all.

A couple days of moping around Mantasoa later, we were told that we would be evacuating - via text message read aloud in the middle of dinner. A rather unceremonious way to find out you're goin to be ending your Peace Corps service if you ask me, but what can you do? I was on the next flight out to Johannesburg with two other volunteers and everyone else trickled in in the following days. Ironically, Johannesburg is a red zone for Peace Corps volunteers, meaning that we were evacuated from a country where most of us were able to live in complete safety at site to a city where we weren't allowed to leave the hotel because it was so dangerous. I have my doubts as to how dangerous Johannesburg really is but I didn't want to push my luck.

After a week long Close of Service conference where I first waited to hear my options (being the first one there meant I had to spend several days biting my nails while I waited for everyone else to show up to hear the talk on our options). Then I spent hours debating my options: direct transfer to another country? re-enroll in a few months? hold out for Madagascar and re-instate when the program re-opens? get a job? It was an incredibly stressful and emotional week and I am so glad it's over.

I finally ended up deciding to travel in Africa for awhile with friends and then go home and debate my future further when I'm feeling slightly less emotional. By the way, Becca, it looks like I'm going to make it to your graduation after all so I'll see you soon! I spent a few days on a safari in Kruger Park for one last hurrah with a few people before we went our separate ways. The animal sightings were amazing and we saw four of the Big Five. Right now I'm in Cape Town where we're taking in the sites and planning the rest of our trip. Yesterday I went wine tasting - it was so nice to drink wine that didn't taste like vinegar! This is an awesome city and I'm amazed at how much it feels like I'm back in the states already. Good news there is that I can get some of my weird readjustment to life in a developed area out now while I'm with other PCVs so maybe I'll be kind of normal by the time I go home.

I still have moments where I think about the last couple of months and can't believe what's happened. The worst part is that I wasn't able to say goodbye to anyone at my site since it's so difficult to get calls through to Andina. They thought I was just going to be gone for a week and now I've been forced to abandon them when they need help the most. Madagascar was so calm and peaceful and it was my home for a year...it seems crazy that it's now in so much turmoil. Hopefully things will get better soon because the people there will really struggle the longer this goes on. In the mean time, I'll keep you updated on my travels and if anyone has any ideas for what to do once I get back I'd greatly appreciate the input.