Whoa Peace Corps

Peace Corps just announced that they will now be allowing applicants to pick their preferred program and country of service.

This is creating a lot of buzz within the Peace Corps community. It's definitely game changing. Possibly even mind blowing.

In the past, applicants simply did not have this option. My Peace Corps mentality began, not when I stepped foot in Africa, but when my application got sent back to me from the recruiter with an email that basically said: You've indicated a strong preference for Latin America in your application. However, what we are looking for in applicants is the flexibility and willingness to go anywhere  that they are needed. Please let me know if this is something you're okay with because if not, your Peace Corps journey ends here.

After much soul searching, ("Is this something I really want to do?" "What if I get sent to Africa for two years?"- ha ha, funny how life works) I realized that my reasons for serving in the Peace Corps would not be nullified by where I was physically placed.
In fact, stripping away the romanticism of where I envisioned myself serving and what I expected to be doing was just the first step in making me aware of the challenges and adjustments I would have to make in order to make it through my service.

I replied back to the email: "Yes, I'll go anywhere."

So I was nominated to be an Education volunteer in Eastern Europe and I began mentally preparing for that, and when my invitation finally arrived, I held that manila envelope in my hands and knew-even before opening it- that I would go wherever I was called.

And I did.

I served as a Health volunteer in Southern Africa, a world away from what I had originally set out to do (during the application process), and from what I had been expecting to do (during the nomination process).

It was not all peaches and roses. I didn't love it every single minute. Some days I wondered what it would have been like to be in another country or region or program. But then again, that's everywhere.

I cried when I found out I was going to Mozambique, but I also cried when I left. That's the beauty of Peace Corps. While I wasn't a huge fan of the selection process at the time, ("Uh, I'm going to Mozambique for two years? Where is Mozambique?") in hindsight, it allowed me to fall in love with a country that I had never even heard of and a region that, frankly, I had no previous desire to serve in.

The application process was lengthy, and I absolutely understand the need to streamline it,
and if there's a way to give volunteers more time to prepare before they leave, then I'm all for it.
But choosing where you want to serve is like asking where you want to vacation- most applicants will choose based on location features and program description, which prioritizes the needs of the applicant over the needs of the country or region.   (How many applicants would choose Sub-Saharan Africa over the Caribbean? ) And here's the kicker- applicants who choose specific countries or programs will still have no idea what they're getting themselves in to. They'll have greater expectations, which all RPCV's know, tends only to lead to greater disappointments.

So call me old-fashioned, but that's my two cents on the changes coming through. Either way, Peace Corps is exactly what they call it- "The toughest job you'll ever love" and who knows- maybe if one day I decide I want to live in the Caribbean for two years, I'll sign up again.
;)

Saudade

A few months ago, the New York Times asked RPCV’s to explain, in 150 words, how their Peace Corps experience still affects their lives today. I sat down to think about it, and I was soon lost in a spiral of thoughts and tangents, flashbacks and musings. I thought this would be an easy assignment, but the more I contemplated my prompt, the more I couldn’t seem to grasp a solid explanation of how Peace Corps service still affected me. It wasn’t that it didn’t still affect me. Far from it.

I felt that my time in Africa had seeped into all aspects of my being, and to pry the pre-Peace Corps me from the post-Preace Corps me to examine the differences would be impossible. The sharp contrasts have mellowed, seamlessly merged together in the year+ since my return. When I first got back from the Peace Corps, I would often wake up in the middle of night disoriented, wondering where I was and why my mosquito net was missing. I’d lay awake for hours and the saudades would wash over me like waves crashing over rocks along the shore.

I still awaken occasionally in the dark, thoughts of Mozambique floating to the top of my consciousness. In those still hours, I sometimes have the urge to write, but more often than not, I just go back to sleep.

Sometimes, I feel guilty.

When I was a volunteer, I’d ask my Mozambican friends and coworkers if they often heard back from previous volunteers after they went home to America. “Not really,” They’d usually say, and I’d feel indignant because I couldn’t understand how someone could live amongst and claim to love a community and then just leave without looking back. When it was my turn to leave Africa, I promised my host family I would call them all the time, and I did...at first. But then the once a week turned into once every few weeks, and then once every few months, and right around Christmas-time last year I realized that it had been almost six months since I’d mandar’ed cumprimentos. In a panic, I made my round of calls to my Mozambican contacts and the conversations, as usual, were short. We spoke about the same obligatory topics: the weather here in America and there in Moz, each others’ families, whether my dogs were still doing well. My Portuguese would warm up slowly like a car engine on a frosty morning and by the time it was going smoothly, the conversation would be over.

It’s hard to keep up with old friends, it seems, no matter where they are. I envy my peers who have found the time / money / commitment to return to Mozambique to visit, as they’ve promised they would (as we all promised we would) but at the same time, I’m certainly not ready to go back. I don’t know if I ever will be.

I know that the Mozambique I remember is a far cry from the Mozambique I lived in. The realities of life in country have long since faded into that dusty, rosy hue. I look back with utmost fondness upon my good memories and time has swept over the rest.

When/if I return, I don’t worry that I won’t be greeted with open arms. No, Mozambique always welcomed me even from the beginning when I was a naive trainee in Namaacha.

I worry that I won’t recognize the places I once called home. I worry that I won’t recognize the sweet children that sat on my porch coloring in the summer heat; after all, they will be grown men and women. I worry that my dog won’t recognize me or worse, won’t be there anymore. It’ll feel strange.  A Peace Corps volunteer I don’t know will be living in my old house. The counterparts I once saw every day will seem like strangers. The cultural barriers, the language challenges slowly broken down over two years, will have been erected again. It’ll be like starting over.

Someone once said, “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.” And it does.

And in the meantime, I’ve adjusted to life in the U.S. My days are filled with commute, work, Snapchats of mundane things, going to the gym, getting ready for grad school. I haven’t been able to sit down and finish a book for a long time. My blogs have dried up. I don’t have time to write anymore. I don’t know what to write anymore. I start and I stop, yielding to distractions, and the blogs remain drafts, and the drafts pile up.

It’s no wonder that the word “saudade” doesn’t translate into English. The feeling is so complicated, and it’s the only one I can think to use.  

Saudade (European Portuguese: [sɐwˈðaðɨ], Brazilian Portuguese: [sawˈdadi] or [sawˈdadʒi], Galician: [sawˈðaðe]; plural saudades)[1] is aPortuguese and Galician word that has no direct translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing may never return.[2]