back to work?

As I was packing up my stuff in late November ready for my trip to Kenya and Saudi Arabia, I received a rather surprising message from a former colleague - someone quite senior at the NGO I used to work for.  Was I still living in West Africa?  Was I working, or did I have time available?  & would I be interested in a consultancy project in Mali for three months starting in the New Year??

Having been thrust rather unexpectedly into an earlier retirement than planned (or rather, having never previously thought about when I might retire, and suddenly finding myself faced with a fait accompli!), with Covid and the politics generally discouraging me from an early return to the UK and Covid also complicating any attempts to set off on a slow backpacking trip around the world, I had settled rather too easily into life in Dakar, albeit at a level of budget that meant it was not always comfortable.  So this did not really feel like an opportunity I could turn down - the chance to earn some money, whilst not really missing out on any alternative during that time period.  With the added attraction, in a way, that it was my love of Mali that led to my being told about the job in Dakar back in 2006, and whilst the capital Bamako (where the project takes place) is not part of my reason for loving the country so much, nevertheless it seemed fitting to end my work in the region in Mali.

So we negotiated contract terms and I signed up to fly to Bamako on 10 January, for a three-month contract.  I got a visa sorted out, packed my suitcase, and on 9 January I went along to the Covid testing place to get my PCR test done, all ready to go.

Only it wasn't to be that simple.  The email and Whatsapp message came through late in the afternoon, to tell me that the analysis of my test result was 'inconclusive' and they would have to do it again.  then around an hour later, news filtered out that ECOWAS (the Economic Organisation of West African States) were so unhappy about the Malian coup leaders putting off the promised election that they had slapped sanctions on Mali with immediate effect - including closure of all land and air borders.  So even if the re-analysis of my Covid test gave the result I was expecting, there would be no flight from Dakar to Bamako the next day, nor indeed for the foreseeable future!

Cue frantic running around in our NGO offices to try to find a way of getting my colleague and I to Bamako, with the eventual solution being a very long route via Istanbul a couple of days later.  However at around midday, my updated result came through from the lab, and I found that I was Covid-positive.  A big surprise, as I am triple-vaccinated and was not experiencing any symptoms of infection ... or at least, I hadn't thought I was, but once I knew my positive status I re-evaluated those sneezes from earlier in January and related runny nose 'due to the dust'.  My flatmate was also sneezing in response to the dust cloud, but got tested following my result and of course found that she was also positive.

Two tests later and I finally got the negative result I needed, and a ticket for a long flight to Istanbul, 15 hours there in transit, and another long flight back to Bamako, and on 1 February I set off for the airport - and whilst the car broke down en route, I still made my flight and arrived safe but tired in Mali.  As the project pays me a daily rate I was disappointed to have missed three weeks of pay, but it seems that the work has been progressing slowly and they will probably still want three months of my time, possibly even four months.

& by the most surreal coincidence, on the morning of 1 February I received a message from someone who used to work at my NGO many years ago, now at a different NGO in a different part of the world and seeing that they need some advice and input from someone with my experience; he asked if I would be sufficiently interested in the possibility of a consultancy project there that he could give my contact details to the board of directors.  So it really is not feeling as though the world of work is yet ready to give me up to retirement!