The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

saying good-bye to friends up- country before taking their flights out. Some volunteers had friends visiting them from the states, which complicated the situation even further and involved an even larger circle of concerned parents. It was determined that 58 PCVs needed assisted evacuations (i.e., a military escort) as they were in rebel- or loyalist-held towns where travel was restricted or thought unsafe. This would be done with the cooperation of the U.S. and French mili- tary, using American C-130s and humvees and French helicopters. The remaining volunteers, who were in large- ly unaffected areas, walked, bicycled, took buses, taxis and hitched rides with other expatriates or international vol- unteers heading for Abidjan. Within seven days the unassisted volunteers were all in Abidjan. These included a 79-year-old married couple, two volunteers who were converted during their travels over remote roads with missionaries from the rebel-held territory in the north, and a newly-married couple who had performed the ceremony en route to Abidjan. Peace Corps in its generos- ity gave the volunteer and her new spouse a 48-hour honeymoon in the capital before the new bride was put on the bus to Ghana. Fulfilling a Mission It was a challenging task to coordinate the interface between the State Department, Embassy Abidjan, and the Department of Defense. To complicate things, the coordi- nation extended to the French military, the main force on the ground leading the evacuation. The coordinators of the monitoring group painstakingly brokered agreements and facilitated communication among all parties. Each evacua- F O C U S 42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 It would take 10 more days to move 133 volunteers from the remotest areas of the country to the capital for evacuation.