Peace Corps is strange. The days are long, but the months are short. Time in Peace Corps can be measured by term breaks, trimester reporting, or the amount of vacation days accrued thus far. It can be counted by how long it takes for a grant to approved or for your mail to reach the post office. Peace Corps time can also be measured by the harshest of all things: the number of people who say good-bye.
A bit like high school, Peace Corps’ 27-month term puts volunteers firmly in classes, with no chances of skipping a grade. Each grade lasts 6 months with the exception of freshman year, which lasts 9 months – a 3-month trial to see if high school is even for you. While every 6 months means another grade completed, it also means one class graduates.
Peace Corps is not the kind of high school that puts freshman in separate halls. Everyone gets to be in the same building. All jumbled together, freshman next to juniors, sophomores next to seniors resulting in fervent friendships that can occur within weeks.
But, this also means that every six months one class leaves with the fanfare of a departing king – goodbye parties, dinners, and sleepovers; giving away items accumulated over 24 months; and spending left over shilling on bucket list items that were pushed down the road until there was no time left. As the months on a calendar fly by (dramatically like in the movies), volunteers count down the days until senior year when anything goes and it’s time to truly start thinking about life post-Peace Corps.
In the meantime, everyone moves one grade higher with slightly fuller houses bursting with third or fourth-hand clothes, the extra plastic shelves that no one (but everyone) wanted, and the guitar without a case finds a new owner each year.
None of these eminent, plenty of time, clockwork-like departures prepare you for goodbye because as soon as you say goodbye, the freshman arrive – wide eyed, clean, and naïve, eager to be your friend. They’re keen to learn and explore, hear stories and experiences, never giving you a chance to breathe, to mourn for the unbelievable friendships you’ve created over the past 6 months, 12 months, 18 months.
The evolving 6-months door has nothing on sudden transfers. The goodbyes that comes in-between. The ones you’re not prepared for, that seemingly come out of nowhere. Or maybe they’ve been festering under the surface for weeks. These can be even more gut wrenching. They leave gaps that cannot be filled for another 3 months or 4 months and two weeks, not until the next class of freshman arrives.
Yet, the wheels keep turning, the cycle continues, the goodbyes carry on and you can’t stop them. You don’t even want to, not really, because some day that’ll be you staring out the window as the airplane takes off, leaving one large piece of your heart spread out over an entire country because you’re leaving your laughter at midnight, tears at weddings and funerals, the happy and sad moments with the newly anointed seniors who are defining their Peace Corps legacy just like you did yours.
One of the hardest parts about Peace Corps service, for me at least, is always having one foot out the door. There’s a constant pull to be full in both places, yet not really belonging in either space. It’s the late night Facebook scroll to see high school classmates having their second child with their spouse of six years. It’s leaving a dinner celebration with the neighbors to make sure I’m available to Skype with friends scattered across the States. It’s remembering to check my email in town on wifi and returning messages before the power goes out. It’s the paradox of being in a dark room light by Christmas lights and being told “you look really good” knowing I haven’t washed my hair in 4 days.
It’s the perpetual feeling of failing at two things at once -the feeling of never being good enough for either place. Constantly pulling away from one world only to realize I don’t fit into the other