Matt

Nearly two months have passed since I last wrote, and there's no way I could explain what's been going on since Ramadan in a single post. My apologies for the "geyyan" - but life has been in the way, and it's been good like this. A returned PCV friend advised me to live my life here while I was here, rather than live only to report to people back home, and I've been doing a good job of that. But, as a result, I've gotten concerned emails from people asking if I'm okay: thank you! and yes.

The biggest thing that's happened lately most of you know about from a recent mass emailing: my good friend Matt, a fellow Gotheye volunteer, was ordered by the army to abandon his post here in Niger to report to Fort Benning. Matt served four years of active duty as an infantryman, including one year in Iraq and another in Korea. He'd been listed as 'inactive reserve' until recently, when it was decided that taking him out of his PEACE Corps country to send him back to war was an acceptable idea.

This is outrageous and disgusting. It looks like the work we do here isn't valued in the eyes of our government. But I have to mention that those are my opinions as 1) a human being, 2) an individual American, and 3) a friend of Matt's, NOT necessarily the opinions of the Peace Corps.

Matt was one of the first buddies I made, though at first he drove me nuts. He sat next to me for part of the ride over the Atlantic and talked my ear off when all I wanted was to sleep. He leapt at the chance to be interviewed for my little movie about our training class, cracking jokes and making faces for the camera. Once in Niger, he immediately set to work as an agriculture extension agent (literally, the night we landed he requested farm tools). He spoke Zarma more unselfconsciously than anyone as we stumbled through the learning process. After our first month at our respective posts, he greeted me at the door of the transit house in Gotheye with my first Nigerien birthday present, having remembered the date. In his village, he ate all the local food he could get his hands on and quickly made friends. He built big plans with his local women's group, working on an income-generating project selling sesame products. He planted huge amounts of millet during rainy season and was in the middle of harvesting it when he was ordered to leave.

A group of us (again, please note, independent of Matt) have written a petition to prevent this from happening to other volunteers who have completed their active duty commitment in the military and have chosen to continue serving their country (and the world) as Peace Corps Volunteers. We think they should be allowed to finish their commitment to the Peace Corps without being called back to war. If you agree, please sign the petition here: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/keep-reservist-peace-corps-volunteers-out-of-military.html.

Further, we've written a press release to be used by anyone who has connections with the press or politicians. A version of this was sent out to those of you who received the mass e-mail, and it has since been modified. I'd ask any of you who have used it or think you could to please DO SO, but let me know, so I can send you the updated version and direct you to others more experienced and knowledgeable than myself who may be able to better answer questions.

If this convinces you to leap into action, now is the time.
If you need more information, please contact me.


More to come.