Once upon a time we were strangers.
We must have put fear into the hearts of travelers at the
Dulles Airport as 23 twenty-somethings sat surrounded by mountains of luggage.
People were probably thinking we were some school group, some random team, some
bizarre pop group and entourage (okay, so maybe the last one is wishful
thinking).
Last year I was a bundle of nerves about leaving for Mali. I
had thought about being a Peace Corps Volunteer for years, I had worked for it;
I had gone to REI for like the first time ever. I was there. I didn’t have a
clue.
Last year.
I remember it all like it was yesterday. I remember being so
afraid that I was still sweaty from running around DC all day trying to finish
up some medical paperwork before staging officially started. I remember
freaking out over which table to sit at because I was starting a new table and
there is nothing worse than being the only one sitting at a table for eight. I
remember trying to gracefully move my chair over for this guy who came late
without causing a ruckus, plowing into the other guy next to me, or landing on
my skirt.
Together we were nervous. Together we were excited. Together
we all wondered if we packed the right thing. Together we wondered why Peace
Corps hadn’t splurged and bought us lunch.
Since then so much has happened.
We trained. We talked. We learned. We shared.
We became the Goodfellas.
We befriended each other. Dated each other. Fought. Laughed.
Cried. Cuddled. And laughed again.
And then, just like that, it all ended. It ended early for
me. It ended early for them. We got pulled apart. And yet, we clung tight.
There is so much I want to say about this day that marks the
year I met all those people. Those people who became my everything. And yet, I
am left with only clichés. How do you thank those who saved you? How do you
look at them with anything but the greatest love and gratitude?
If I hadn’t met them I’d be a different person. If I hadn’t
had Mali I’d be a different person.
Mali pushed against my pull. It threw everything it had at
me and this group of people and said “NOW WHAT?” If we thought we had a handle
on it, Mali changed the rules of the game. And for the briefest period, we
loved it and gave it everything inside us.
And then we had to leave.
I miss the smiles on my host family. I miss mangoes. I miss
the smell and the dirt. I miss the tea. I miss Tubes with its camp like feeling
and the fact that if we were at Tubes we were together. I miss gazing at the
stars and feeling how big the world is and how small I felt.
Once upon a time I thought my life was perfectly fine the
way it was. I just couldn’t have
been more wrong. Those 23 people, those strangers, and all the other Mali PCVs
I met, they changed me, the left their mark. Whether or not I see all of them
again, whether or not I’m in the stories they tell their grandchildren, whether
or not they remember my name, they have made me this person I am right now. And
I will be forever thankful.
Three hundred sixty-five days.
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| we danced. |
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| Tubes shenanigans. |
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| chillin' |
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| the fellas and Pat |
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| some of the gals (where's Pam?!) |
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| Segou... |
