RPCV

From the PDF: You have returned from an 18 month volunteer commitment in Burkina Faso. After a ten hour bush taxi ride, you flew from Ouagadougou to Dakar, then Paris, and now you are home, waiting for your final connecting flights. The terminal around you is freezing cold, spotlessly clean and crowded with busy travelers. You are pretty exhausted, and someone just threw away a perfectly good plastic container. The culture shock is just starting to hit you. With you are other volunteers you lived and worked with. A ragged cluster of dirty, exhausted travelers. The work was hard and often thankless. The poverty of Burkina Faso is crushing and the government is an oppressive dictatorship. But the people are wonderful - generous, hard working and smart. You already miss the friends you made, but time as a volunteer also haunts you.