May not be appropriate for the easily worried... mom

Although there are a lot of drawbacks to not having internet or even electricity for that matter, there is one thing that I have come to really enjoy, the BBC on the radio. Every night at 8 they have "News Hour" and I frequently listen to it. Most of the time it's British soccer matches, something about the middle east and something about the EU or UN. Most of these things will not directly affect my daily life, but serve as topics of discussions to make me feel just a little more smart and worldly. Last night, however, was heavily weighted on African happenings. 3 of the 7 countries that border Mali were in the international news for political unrest. Niger, the latest to join West Africa's list of politically unstable countries was taken over by a coupe de taut. They took the president, who recently changed the constitution so he could stay in power longer, hostage and took over the national radio station to announce the take over. The African Union has temporarily suspended Niger's membership. A UN commission has just declared that the coup that over threw the government last year in Guinea committed crimes against humanity. And in the Ivory Coast, police shot people who were protesting/rioting in the capital. Now only 2 of the 7 countries are Peace Corps friendly, 3 politically unstable, 2 that don't give visas to US citizens and volunteers are prohibited from going to 3 of the northern regions of Mali. Don't worry I still feel safe. It would be as if I lived in Reno (a stretch of the imagination I know), and there were riots in Phoenix, crimes against humanity in SF, Oregon is still friendly, but the government in Salt Lake City was over thrown and Wyoming and Montana are controlled by rebel groups that kidnap white westerners for ransom and they are slowly taking over Ely and Eureka, but New Mexico it ok. The geography isn't a perfect comparison, but it's close. But don't worry, the Peace Corps would make all of us leave if anything remotely dangerous happened.