Warning: Weepy Reflection Ahead

It’s my last night in my site as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I feel surprisingly calm. Surprising is probably the best word to describe my time in PC. It’s been over two years since I decided to join, and well, things definitely did not go as I expected. I didn’t expect to be evacuated, I didn’t expect to have to start over so many times, I didn’t expect to fail so badly and so often, I didn’t expect to fall in love, I didn’t expect to start craving large amounts of white rice, I didn’t expect to become a dog person, I didn’t expect to feel so many different emotions at the same time. Even something as simple as contentment becomes complicated because if you’re happy here it means you’re happy despite being away from your friends and family and this then confuses and depresses you. You think about your other life and how you were happy there too, how you miss making jokes that people understand or eating Thai takeout. But then you make a joke in Spanish and people actually laugh and you feel great or the guy with the best encebollado in town is at the bus stop and you eat a big steaming bowl for $1.25 and it’s delicious. Then you think, I could be here for a while, I could make this work.

When I think about what I accomplished during my PC service I can’t help but be a bit disappointed. I try to focus on the positive and forget the failures, of which there were many. I have found it almost impossible to make any of the work I've done in the community sustainable. When I leave no one is going to teach an extracurricular class for the children of the community. My neighbors will hopefully continue planting and harvesting in the community garden but for how long? Will more people join or start their own gardens? I would hope so but I can't say for certain. I know some people started composting and planting but I'll always feel like I didn't have the scope to reach enough people. Part of it has to do with the dynamics of the community but I feel like on a basic level I failed to engage enough people to form any kind of sustainable or productive group. The people who want to learn will show up and if that means teaching compost to two people, well, I’ll be there with a shovel ready to go. I’ll drop nutrition tips into regular conversations or denounce machismo comments any chance I get. Being a volunteer is about more than the numbers on your quarterly report. Failure is very real and very painful but at the same time I know that my community will remember me for all the positive things I did and not that time no one showed up for my charla. Just walking through my community makes me feel good about the time I spent there. In just a few minutes I’ll go from the school where I taught, danced and played indor, then pass by the church I helped paint and then the fields where I helped my neighbor harvest pineapple, further up is where I held my Friday afternoon class and painted the World Map, right next to that is the community garden where the lettuce that everyone told me wouldn’t grow here is big and ready to be harvested, along with some tomatoes and green peppers, past Magola’s house where I had so many good meals, down to the river where I bathed and washed my clothes when there was no water, over to where I planted some balsa trees, that in a few years will be thick and tall, I take this all in and I realize that if nothing else I participated. And that’s how you need to live your life; you need to participate if you want to get anything out of it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what kind of life I want to live exactly, what things really matter to me, what do I really need. The more I think about it the more I want a simple life, not focused on material possessions, but on experiences, relationships and hard work doing something you care about. It’s still hard though, at times, to shake off the mentality of more is more and I’ll admit that when I walk into the Supermaxi I want to immediately buy every American product I see, things I would never even buy in the states. It’s a combination of my ingrained consumer impulse and nostalgia for home. I was raised believing you have to live a certain way, own certain things and reach certain goals in order to be successful. But I’ve slowly come to realize that my definition of success is a lot different than what I was taught. I’ve lived without a lot of things that people in the states would claim “they can’t live without” (TV, internet access, hot water to name a few) and yet I’ve lived a very pleasant and comfortable life. Yes it can be a hassle to not have complete communication capabilities, to not understand my friends’ pop culture references or to pour a bucket of cold water on myself when it’s not hot out, but when I think about what I’ve missed, I mean really missed from the states, those things don’t seem to matter. What matters are all those milestones on the life spectrum that I wasn’t there for, weddings, births, funerals, moments that you should be present for the people that you care about and I couldn’t be. But what I really missed out on is the sometimes mundane, sometimes absurd comedy of life, the everyday, the stuff that binds us. By being here I gave all that up and it’s not something I can get back as easily as ordering from the Thai takeout menu. I wasn’t there to help move, to proofread a term paper, to visit in the hospital, or to celebrate birthdays, holidays, promotions, Saturday. I can’t help but feel guilty about this. And now I’m leaving again. When will you be back? I’ve been asked that practically since I got here. It’s almost as if being here doesn’t count unless I return. Maybe it’s because most of the people in this community know that they’re not going anywhere. If I do come back, they’ll most assuredly still be here. When will you be back? I haven’t even left yet.

I'm happy to be closing my Peace Corps service on a good note. At the very least, this time I get to say good-bye. In the coming days there will be despedidas and I'll make the rounds to all my friends and neighbors, assuring them once again with my best Terminator voice that I'll be back, I just don't know when. I'm excited to start a new adventure, without the watchful eye of the government, but also without it's safety net. Most of my wordly possessions have been given away or sold. All of my clothes have holes, are stained or smell like mold. I feel like a vagabond and will be living like one too. No set schedule, a rough outline in my mind of where and when, but not knowing is half the fun. Plus the minor detail of me having to learn to drive stick shift. And who knows what other useful skills I'll pick up along the way, surely by the end of this trip I'll be able to do an invisible bribe pass and talk my way out of tickets in Spanish. The possibilities are endless when you're up for anything. Coming and going are the hardest parts of Peace Corps, but if you're constantly moving then you're always coming and going and that will be our greatest challenge on this trip. That along with the constant strikes, breakdowns, explosive diahrrea, border crossings, lack of money, politicial turmoil and who knows what else. I can't wait!