Reflection: The Journey to Site

We had waited for it since deciding to join the Peace Corps: visiting our village for the first time in order to imagine more fully what our service will be.  Even after site announcement, it is one thing to see it written on paper, but another entirely to see your village, smell its air, and feel its dust on the pads of your feet.  It had already been a long agonizing journey, but our travels the day of site visit were possibly the most testing and grueling of all.

Deciding to join Peace Corps, applying for Master’s International, moving to Lansing…

We woke up at 4:15am and finished packing in the near dark. Joye and I both had our Peace Corps-issued mountain bikes, a medium-size backpack, and I also brought a large water filter.  Tired and wet with rain, we boarded a rickety bus leaving from Bamako along with our Malian counterparts. With our bags between our legs and the rain leaking through the roof, it was a tiring ride, and we were happy to be done with it past noon.

…filling out the application, writing eloquent essays, interviewing as a couple, waiting…

From here, a moderate industrial city, we boarded a shuttle bus. We rode with our bags on our laps and our bikes strapped carelessly to the roof. This lasted for a few hours, but as we crossed country, many pleasant changes occurred as well. The sun replaced the rain, and the landscape grew increasingly lush with thick grasses, taller crops, and more numerous trees. Around every turn in the narrow road lay a land more exciting and promising than before, so that our exhaustion was balanced by mounting anticipation.

…getting medical clearance, insurance, dental exams, fillings, eye exams, glasses…

Finally, after it seemed as if the bus could be no further from civilization, it found an three-way intersection and stopped. Minutes later, we had strapped the water filter to the back of my bike with a cord of nylon rope and we were ready to go. Joye’s counterpart led the way, taking us down the intersection’s fourth road, a dirt trail that headed into the bush. If we were not so busy grinning with sheer excitement, we might have noticed the clouds brewing just over our head.

…trips to the doctor, vaccination records, blood tests, express mail, waiting…

We should have seen it coming. Given our luck, it was inevitable and entirely predictable. Indeed, after one year of anxiousness and heartache, one month of Bambara language training, and twelve hours of uncomfortable travel, with only five kilometers to go, it began to rain. Or to literally translate the Bambara equivalent: the sky-water came, and it came big.

…getting approved, researching Mali, buying new skirts, tech,  footwear, raincoats…

Within minutes, the rain was stinging our faces, piercing our rain coats and backpacks alike. Then the water bullets were replaced with large pelting drops that soaked straight to the bone. At first it was refreshing, but it soon became apparent that it was not just a passing storm. I screamed out jokingly, “This is my nightmare!” but the nightmare had just begun.

…finishing school and research, two-weeks notice,  filing paperwork, settling finances…

The path narrowed as it fell in between large fields of millet, corn, and cotton. Soon, runoff from the farmland began to flow into and then fill the road ahead. Still, Joye’s counterpart led on, undoubtedly as drenched as we were, being continually attacked with water from both the ground and sky. I yelled to Joye, who rode in the middle, to make sure she was doing okay, and she turned to me with a big grin on her face. “I think we’ve invented a new sport,” she said. “River biking.”

…leaving our apartment, last church service, moving furniture, saying goodbye to friends…

However, very quickly, that joke wasn’t funny either. The entire path was a river, a flowing body of water that pushed against our progress. After a few tries at biking with the pedals submerging with every cycle, Joye’s counterpart decided we should walk. Mud to our shins, a flowing current through my hiking boots, and the soggy box of the water filter pathetically hanging from the bike rack like a loose tooth; this was a nightmare. Joye, too, was losing her patience, as her fabric wrap, now stained with mud, refused to stay tied about her. And yet, we both needed no encouragement. With resolute determination, we proceeded.

…packing our bags, hugging our families, takeoff from Detroit, Philly, touchdown in Mali…

It took us an hour and fifty minutes to cover what we later discovered to be a forty-five minute ride. By the time we arrived, back on the bikes, darkness had covered the fields surrounding our small village, but still, the rain did not cease. It was enough for Joye to revise her sport to “Midnight Mystery River Biking,” because in the dark, we were very much blind. In fact, I hardly noticed Joye’s counterpart signaling to dismount, not because we needed to trudge on foot, but because, at long last, we were there.

…going to homestay, living in separate villages, eating tough meat, learning the language…

Therefore, our first intake of our new home was not one of quiet contemplation or giddy enthusiasm, but rather that of two wet and dirty vagabonds desperately looking for shelter. But as we shrugged off our soaked clothing, we knew that we had done it – passed the final test, overcame the last obstacle. But we did not do it alone. Joye’s counterpart biked with us and two villagers on motorcycles carried our baggage part way. Friends did us favors, gave us encouragement, and our families fully supported a decision they never quite understood. And from before the beginning and through the storm, God was watching over us. We all did it, together. More than a year after we began, we got Joye and I to our site.

…bus from Bamako, shuttle to the bush, and biking to our site as the sky-water fell.

-Jim