"In the Waiting Line"

Well that was quick. I’m back in Mali after what the calendar says was three weeks home in the States. Thank you to all who made my visit a truly lovely one. Unfortunately, there is a long list of people I wanted to see and didn’t; I guess that’s just another good reason to go back! That and Mexican food.

In lieu of philosophical discussions on reverse culture shock and new perspectives on old familiar things, I have a fun story from my travels back to Africa. After a three hour flight from Nashville to New York and a four hour layover hanging out alone in JFK, I was a little sad to get on my nine hour New York to Casablanca flight, knowing I had another twelve hours to spend alone wandering around the airport. I slept almost the entire nine hours and landed in Casablanca sometime before noon. As I was standing up to deplane, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It turns out another Mali PCV had been in the row directly behind me the entire time, unbeknownst to either of us. Awesome, I thought, now I have a buddy with whom to wander the airport.

We stood in line to have our passports stamped and chatted about how many official vacation days we’d used up. Then a woman behind us in line said, “Excuse me, are you Peace Corps Volunteers?” We were like, “Uh yeah, how’d you know?” She said the vacation allotment discussion was a familiar one to her. She was an RPCV from Morocco on her way to Mali do some research for her graduate program. We were on the same flight to Bamako. Now I had two friends for all day airport wandering!

After a little whining about how long the day was going to be, our new Moroccan RPCV friend said, “Well, I had this idea before but didn’t want to do it alone. But now that I’ve got you guys… You wanna go to Rabat?” I hadn’t realized that the capital of Morocco was just a 45 minute train ride from the Casablanca airport. She assured us that although it had been two years since she’d been back, she knew where to get the train, where to switch lines, where to have some delicious chawarma and coffee, and how to get back to the airport in time to catch our flight to Bamako. That decision wasn’t too tough to make.

I changed some euros for dirham in the airport, explained to the customs official that we were just going to Rabat for the day (yes, I know, my flight is tonight, thank you, sir), bought a train ticket and took off down the coast (which is gorgeous). We got off at the equivalent of Union Station in downtown Rabat and took and informal walking and taxi cab tour of the city. We saw the king’s personal mosque, a union protest on the main square, the old walled city, the old Portuguese ramparts by the ocean, and took a walk through a souk (market) so lovely and colorful I didn’t want to leave. Malian markets do not hold a candle. After fresh squeezed orange juice, mint tea, and fried bread (“fat girl bread”) we got back on the train for Casa feeling like accomplished world travelers.

I was very thankful to have found new friend who, coincidently, is the girlfriend of another Moroccan RPCV whose father is a Malian PCV from my stage. From Cleveland, Tennessee. How’s THAT for a small world! I have the good feeling that this will not be the last time the worldwide Peace Corps network provides me a great opportunity. I was also very thankful to have my French without which I may have been slightly less inclined to embark on such a spontaneous jaunt with someone I’d known about 10 minutes. Schoolhouse Rocky was right: Knowledge is power! And freedom.

Summary: America is great, I was glad to be home, but go to Morocco. It’s pretty fabulous. You can skip Mali.

P.S. You know I wouldn’t leave you without some photographic evidence: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119216&l=7bc69&id=1404038