525,600 Minutes

I can't completely believe this myself, but I'm at the year-mark! Halfway finished with my Peace Corps service! Woot woot. It's funny - two songs keep popping into my head whenever I think about having been in Mali for a year: 1) Living on a Prayer, Bon Jovi "Ohhhhhhhhh! We're halfway there!" and 2) Seasons of Love from RENT "How do you measure, measure a year? Measure in love."

When I think about the past year of my life, especially given that I was home in May and will be going home again in September for a friend's wedding (shout-out to Sam and Nate!), I often think about how to explain my new life. In May, it was really hard to continually explain what I do to people that don't even know where Mali is. I feel like I'm two people: America Jen and Mali Aissata (Aissata is my Malian name). I changed my course drastically a year ago, and now everything that is normal to me in Mali was completely abnormal in America. I have changed everything about myself: my clothes, hair, language, home, worldview, living situation, continent, daily schedule, and live in a different reality than I did before. How can those two worlds possibly merge? Will I always be some sort of bipolar oddity?

It's funny, when people ask me what I've been doing with Peace Corps for the past year - and they expect a 5-second American-style answer - it is impossible. How can I explain that I don't work in an office 9 to 5 but I do work 24 hours a day? I have done a great deal of work but it's not tangible. I have done very few things that are measurable by American standards. How can I explain this? What have I done?

I have spoken four different languages in one sentence and was understood. I have lived in a house with no electricity or running water and bathed in buckets; pulled drinking water from a well and taken a push cart 5k to plant seeds. I have learned to meditate and do yoga on roof tops. I have watched cattle stampedes and bartered in markets. I have seen things most people have not. I have seen camels and monkeys; fires and chaos; been lost in a city made of mud and stood atop a 1000 foot cliff. I have made friends and found a new family in an African village of 400 people. I have seen thousand year old masks and learned how to make new ones. I have seen women spend their entire days trying to survive: pounding millet, drawing water, cooking, bathing children, growing food. I have taught new ways to plant trees, explained basic nutrition, and learned how to pluck a chicken. I have seen children die and accidents happen. I have experienced losses and achievements and tried to take them in stride. I have hit people and been ashamed of myself. I have created a way for my village to have vegetables, and taught skills in project design, budgeting, and management, and along the way made ever so many mistakes. I have sweated through 110 degree nights and biked through 120 degree days. I have seen slave ports and oceans, rivers, lakes, and sand that seemed to go on forever. I have climbed mountains, eaten sheep organs, stepped on mice and killed scorpions, seen spiders the size of my hand and taken transportation with a goat for a seatmate. I have eaten the best mangos in the world, and lived off a handful of rice for dinner.

I feel as though I have accomplished more this year than ever before but I know that is not true. And it's back to Seasons of Love: How can I measure what is possible in a year's time? I am constantly asking myself: is this worth staying for? Is this worth giving up my family and friends for 2 years? And now, a year later, I realize that it is. Because the past year, and all the years before it, have been measured in love. And the love in my life has only increased since I came to Mali. Yes, there are days where this feels like my personal hell, but those itty bitty moments where something wonderful happens - that is love, and that makes it worth it. But how do you explain that in 5 seconds? I guess you don't.