Rural and Urban

There are many Peace Corps experiences.  The stereotype may be mud huts and total isolation, but even in Mali many volunteers find themselves working in towns and cities.  When we first arrived in Mali and had not been assigned a community yet we were asked if we would prefer a rural life or an urban one.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both.  My life (after a whole two weeks of service at site) fits the Peace Corps stereotype well.  My village is small, everyone knows my name, lives in a mud hut, has no electricity, fetches their water and carries it back on their head.  It sucks sometimes (mostly because there is no good food or beer), but the I have certain advantages the city volunteers do not have.

City volunteers enjoy amenities that are lacking in the villages.  Food is available to buy in stores or markets any day of the week in larger towns.  This provides for tastier healthier diets than rural areas.   Water is easier to access as well for city volunteers as pumps and wells are readily available.  Some may even have running water.  Electricity and cell phone reception are other perks.  Some volunteers (not so much in Mali) even have toilets and internet.  These individuals are known as 'Poshcorps' volunteers.

I can't say I don't wish I had these luxuries.  Since the harvest is not for another two months my village is running low on food supplies and I find myself hungry.  I can eat millet as much as I want but I never get full.  I just eat until I get bored of eating. For water I can go either to a spring next to the village or to a well a mile away.  My house is dark and sometimes I feel isolated.  Sometimes I do not like that everyone knows me and crave that anonymity that exists only in cities.

But there are ways to get around these obstacles...  markets exist nearby and as soon as I figure out bus schedules and what villages have market on what days my diet will improve.  I give kids or villagers soap and they will do my laundry or fetch water for me.  I have a solar charger to charge a lamp and cell phone, and have discovered that by hiking around I can find patches of cell reception.

There are the perks of rural life that urban volunteers do not have.  With only 500 people in my village in will be easier to organize meetings and get the community behind the projects.  Community needs will be easier to assess.  I feel like a celebrity in a good way sometimes.  And it is beautiful: simple and clean with a breath taking landscaping that rivals Montana!

Below is a Dogon village (not mine) and Mopti a major Malian city where a couple of Peace Corps volunteers serve.  You can tell that there would be perks and disadvantages to both styles of Peace Corps.

I don't mean to say that I am getting a better Peace Corps experience than urban volunteers.  It is just a way of showing the two sides of Peace Corps.  Development is needed everywhere and no matter where you end up it will be a challenging experience.  I just thought it was important to point out that the Peace Corps experience varies greatly from one volunteer to the next, and the mud hut small village stereotype does not always hold true.