The week Margie died was also the week that things got really crazy back in Niger. I got emails from Peace Corps staff and from other Volunteers with updates. I had been given two months off, and had over a month of that left, so I didn’t need to be immediately concerned with what was going on there, but still it was a bit overwhelming. There was an attempted kidnapping of American Embassy employees about three hours from my village (For the record: these attempted-kidnappers were not Nigeriens. Nigeriens in general are very pro-American and extremely welcoming. There are, however, some other groups who are staying in the desert in Mauritania, Mali, and now Niger who are… well… less friendly).
PCVs had been consolidated (that is, all brought in to a central location and told to stay put until further notice), and the Embassy/Peace Corps were considering evacuating certain areas. They ended up evacuating my region, which meant I couldn’t go back to Allela. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to go back to Niger at all, or if I would want to under the circumstances. Readjusting to a whole new community would be a lot to take on… At that particular moment too many things were up in the air and too much was going on for me to be able to process it enough to make a decision. I put all that on hold.
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