Two weeks. WHAT I’M I DOING?

I've been talking with family, friends, and fellow volunteers.  I'm well less than a month before departure.  This seems to be about the time that volunteering for the Peace Corps becomes “really real” – “crazy real” – “scary real”.  Scary for volunteers, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, other relatives, and close friends.  Now is the time when some families and friends put pressure on future volunteers to re-examine their commitment.  Now is the time for future volunteers to reexamine the significant commitment staring them in the face even if they have a very supportive family like mine.

How can you leave now?

Some younger volunteers are being asked “What about your great grandmother (grandfather, aunt, uncle, etc.)?”  They are being told that they’ll miss the first year in the life of a niece or nephew. Graduations and other life events.  The impact on their career and future earning potential might be explained or hammered home with the love or impatience of a worried parent.

Parents worry – even for 55 year old children.  Older volunteers have related questions.  Parents or siblings in poor health may cause concern.  In my age bracket people are missing out grandkids rather than nieces and nephews.  I’m at the peak of my earning potential and I've thrown it away.

Is it safe?

Peace Corps takes good care of the volunteers, but life happens.  We know that it will be difficult, hard, and frustrating.  We will be uncomfortable at times, likely get sick – certainly sick and tired.  Parasites, HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio, multiple drug resistant tuberculosis, ebola, bad roads, traffic accidents, remote locations, etc, etc, etc.  I’m guessing most future volunteers and a good number of family and friends have searched for deaths of Peace Corps Volunteers.  Fortunately rare, unfortunately possible.

Every aspect of the decision may be called into question at this time.  In the weeks before departure the answers given at the start of the process are reexamined.  The application may have been submitted a year or more ago and now the time is near.  We have a lot of time to reflect on the decision, but somehow in the last few weeks there is an urgency, maybe a panic, about the upcoming step.

I expect that every volunteer questions their decision before departure and many times during service.  Can I make it? Is the work worth doing?  My emotions are stuck in a blender.  I've not figured out when, or even if, the blender stops.

How can you leave for so long?

One thing for sure –Peace Corps Volunteers, family, and friends question the decision multiple times along the way, maybe multiple times a day.  Some change their minds.

Some potential volunteers pull their application before getting the invitation due to some life event or other reason.  Some decline the invitation and find something else to do.  Some get cold feet before boarding the international flight.

And then there is Pre-Service Training (PST) – some call it pretty stressful training.  You land in another country with new weather, new food, and a new culture.  You are thrown together with different people – volunteers, staff, and host country nations.  There are the additional stresses of learning, trying to learn, struggling to learn.  So many things wear down the volunteers.  Some will leave (Early Terminate – ET) during PST and others will ET shortly after they get to site.  There is no certainty that anyone will last the 27 months.

Granted, Peace Corps service is easier now in a world of Skype, Facebook, and instant messaging – but still hard.  Impossible to give a hug or a handshake 6,000 miles away.  Still, one is not on Mars.  Many people travel home during their service.  I’ll be home for my daughter’s wedding next year – NO MATTER WHAT.  The Peace Corps is very good about getting volunteers back quickly for emergencies as some of my friends have recently, and unfortunately, discovered with the death of a brother.

Even with Skype and visits home volunteers know that we will miss so many many important events in the lives of my family and friends, so many experiences we’ll never experience.  I’m not happy knowing some of what I’ll miss if I last 27 months.

Any yet we go.

I expect most if not all volunteers go knowing service will not be perfect, easy, or totally safe.  I expect most think that a perfect, easy, totally safe life would not be living.

Every Peace Corps volunteer has their own personal reasons for taking up this challenge.  Younger volunteers may see service as a way to improve future career options while older volunteers may see this as a way to re-energize a career.  I think most, but I know not all, volunteers go with a spirit of wanting to make a difference in a small part of the world - bringing peace and social justice by serving others and being served by them.

Making a difference, the ability to volunteer full time doing something that is more meaningful than being a cog in a box in a large corporation is certainly part of my reason to join the Peace Corps.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs).

I've also had the opportunity to talk with RPCVs.  Almost every RPCV that I’m talked with or book / blog I read remembers service as amazing, fulfilling, rewarding – worth it.  Most RPCV have a certain joy and zest for life that is hard to miss – years, decades after their service.  Some have odd joy about intestinal issues, coughing up live worms, and (well you get the picture).  I listen to some of the stories they think are hilarious and think that you’d have to have been there – then I realize I’m going to be going to such a place.

Obviously, some RPCVs have terrible experiences and regret going – which is unfortunate – but also part of life. 

On the whole, talking with RPCVs gives hope that I, that my friends who are volunteering, can also make it.  Thanks to all the returned volunteers for your service in the past and your continued service and friendship to future and current volunteers.

It is not good bye – it is fare well and take care

And so to my family and friends: I’m sorry I’m leaving – I’m glad I’m leaving.  Come what may – success or failure we each have to take life and events one day at a time (occasionally one hour or one minute at a time so some of you very well know from the last few years).  All the best - we can do this.

Pre-Service Training (PST).

As mentioned above PST can be intense and time consuming.  Internet connections may be limited.  Unfortunately, I’m not the best writer and these posts take hours to compose – and I still find grammar and other errors days later.  It is very likely that I’ll not post much during the two and a half months of PST.  The radio silence does not indicate anything bad.

I’m guessing that this is my last long post for a time.  I hope you liked it and I hope I caught most of the errors before posting it.

A final word about this decision.

All we can do is live day by day taking the step that we feel is right at the time.  For some people my age this means taking care of grandkids, continuing to work, and volunteering in this country.  Obviously nothing wrong with that.  My decision is not better than others – just mine at this time.  I’m not “leaving people behind” – because I’m not “going ahead”.  Looking at my past life and my near term future – I don’t see Peace Corps as better, more noble, or anything of the sort – just the next step.  We all have a challenges and opportunities each day, each hour, each minute.  One step at a time.