Thinking About Replacements in Kafara

4 May 2010

The thought came to me long ago, but I failed to act upon it until today. My hesitance to do so sooner was perhaps taken too cautiously, too afraid to burn bridges I’d spent most of the past twenty or so months building. Now I’m at the point in my service, with four months left, where I guess I’m more willing to take risks in that regard, or maybe it’s the fear of future regret that finally pushed me in this direction. In the end, in shaa’ allah, it could be the beginnings of a partnership with which my replacement can take off running.
That’s really where all this began: my replacement. I’ve debated back and forth about the idea, but my indecision was finally bucked by a chance run-in with my supervisor at the bureau last week. He said he wanted to talk about my replacement. Those words blindsided me: my replacement. Wait, my what? I asked more for my own re-confirmation than much else whether my supervisor was set on replacing me, although I had no recollection of ever discussing this matter with him before. He said yes, he thought it best to get another volunteer for Kafara, because it would establish a PC legacy. I suppose hearing this from my supervisor convinced me and upon receiving the appropriate form via email, I didn’t waste any time starting to draft my answers to its questions. It was the section concerning potential work opportunities that I ultimately made the decision that it was time to walk over to the med clinic and have a chat with Dr. Dicko.
My proposal came with a detailed description of what PC volunteer’s work entails. Dicko knew we worked in many sectors, and could serve as an effective liaison between MZC and the village of Kafara. What left him puzzled is why I would decide to live two years in another country, in a manner similar to the country’s nationals. He asked if I was paid well. I said my stipend, in ordinance with PC policy suggesting volunteers’ economic condition be no different from that of my host country nationals, was just over $200 a month, an amount so low it surprised him. He asked about my medical care, whether it was free. I said yes, no matter what the ailment. He asked if I was guaranteed a job when I return home. I said not exactly, but there are definitely advantages to being a PC volunteer when job searching. This status and PC’s reputation hold considerable weight with potential employers across the board. Upon hearing this, Dicko began to understand why one might choose to make the arguably crazy choice to live for twenty-seven months in a mud hut in a small farming village in the world’s third poorest country. In the end, he was very excited about the possibility to work together. I told him I’d very much like to even just shadow him on any of his oversight of MZC’s activities in Kafara and neighboring villages, and possibly go meet his MZC counterparts at their office in Bamako. His answer to any of my requests was il n’ya pas de problème, no problem at all.