My site installation was postponed till tomorrow. I just found out another volunteer is taking interrupted service. Not just any volunteer, but one that was close to me and that I was friends with. So that leaves only a couple of volunteers that are at all close, and even less that I envision being good friends with. I’ve already mentioned that my support group is disappearing, but it seems like each day brings a new loss.

And what is the point of staying if the program is going to slowly bleed away? I don’t hold much hope that things will actually calm down. If anything they will get worse. By now I’ve said goodbye to so many people that the whole thing is starting to feel like an exercise in futility. Anyway, there isn’t a lot I can do about it, and I am hoping that once I get to village it won’t seem like such a tragedy. But I can say that if all of this happens again I am going to be a huge mess. All volunteers have been offered the option to take interrupted service, but I am not ready to give up on the idea of actually having a community again. Not yet. We will see.

The new stage is transferring to Madagascar, and part of me wishes I was going with them, but I have very little desire to start over for a third time. If everything goes well here I will be able to stay for the duration of my service and be happy. But if not its going to be rough.

And at some point it seems silly to keep a program open that is losing half or more of its volunteers and that can barely operate. What will it take for Washington to pull the plug? Its scary to have a major decision like that in the hands of people who aren’t intimately involved in the situation.

I am trying to maintain optimism, but everyone that is here is leaving, and in the face of that there isn’t much of a sense of brotherhood so much as a sense of loss. Hopefully when I come back from my village this will have blown over and we will be ready to renew bonds and form a community.

Tomorrow I’m off to site I hope.