Voy a regresar a EEUU

I´m going to return to the U.S. Yup. I am actually going to quit the Peace Corps. I can hardly believe it myself.

After reflection, an honest look at myself and my situation and talking it out a lot, I have decided to ET (early terminate) from the Peace Corps and come home.

This decision has actually been about 3 weeks in the making. After visiting Santa Maria the first time, I spent the two weeks left of training crying and contemplating as many of you know. I cried during site-visit debrief while discussing how we were feeling about placement (in front on my grande jefe) (this was a good thing and made my group really bond and talk about fears) and again during my final evaluation with my trainer. I even broke down one day in Guarani class with my Paraguayan professora. I have always been a cryer, so this was normal for me. So, I chalked this all up to the anxiety of going to site soon, leaving my group, being alone, etc. I seriously considered coming home during those weeks and said to a fellow trainee "If I went home right now, I would not be sad". Another woman in my group was seriously considering not swearing in and her level of angst and the group-think around it was enough to diminish my questions. So, I shrugged it off, mentioned it to a few of you in passing, and swore in anyway.

This last week has been emotional hell. Not because of the people here. They have been friendly and welcoming. Not because of the town itself, it is LOVELY and has internet, hot water and paved roads, everything I would ever need. It is because of what I am meant to do here.

I wrote this Sunday, August 27, in my journal after I finally forced myself to get out of bed. Never can I remember in 33 years of my life not wanting to get out of bed because of an inability to face the day. This is NOT who I am. I was making coffee in the kitchen and I went back to my room and wrote this:

I have made a terrible mistake. I love to travel, love to learn new cultures, and love to help other people. But, I hate talking to strangers, I hate "bothering" people, and I hate not knowing what is happening next. I am not cut out for this. It is not who I am. I am the person who works with a project group, designing a project with a community to engage them in bettering their community. I am the person who sits to the side, analyzes the needs of a group upon their asking and provides feedback. I am the person who liked being a director because it meant I was far less on the frontlines with the students. Holy Shit. What have I done? I do not belong here. I don't. It is not about being bored and uncomfortable. It is about not WANTING to spend 6 months developing nothing but relationships to MAYBE see if I can do something here.

So I finished writing that and then realized that every time the past few days that I had said to a fellow volunteer or had thought "I will give it until Thanksgiving" the VERY next thought has been "and then I can go home." This, I finally owned, and realized was a very strong message I had not been listening to.

So called my parents and asked them to call me back right away instead of waiting till 8 p.m. when we had a call scheduled. I cried waiting for the phone to ring and cried worse on the phone with them for almost an hour. They were totally objective, and then my mom said "Karen, you didn´t call us to talk this through with us. You called to tell us you have made a decision already." Insightful woman, my mother. Always has been.

And that is what I am doing. That other woman who almost did not swear in is also going to ET this week. If you quit the Peace Corps, they are supposed to have you on a flight home as soon as possible, so I will be touching down in Boston very soon.

I cannot blame the Peace Corps for this entirely. I definitely have some gripes, including the fact that they put us in a Municipal Project group and placed us in site literally one week after the current mayors had to resign for 3 months in order to run again. And, because it is epoca de elecciones, there is nothing going on with the Muni until after the elections November 19. And, if the mayor changes, there will be more uncertainty until he is settled in. This is the case in my Muni. And, nobody knows why I am there. Someone should be a stronger contact for me. Someone who knows why I am there to work and what specifically is the need for the town. There are three goals of the Municipal Development Project, and I would not be able to begin to meet them for at least 6 months, perhaps longer. During this time, I could give presentations in the high school, or sew with the Taller, or teach English, but none of these are things I came to do, and none of those things are sustainable development in which the people of the town create for themselves.

However, I romanticized this. I thought, oh, I can go live somewhere else AND make a difference. I thought the small things would be enough. Apparently not. If I was 23 or 25 and hadn´t lived abroad before, perhaps this would be different. I don´t know, and I never will. I wanted so badly to become fluent in Spanish, but even that desire isn´t enough to keep me here, another sign I´m listening to. And, I've learned something. I don't want to live abroad right now (perhaps not again) but I will still be a tourist, for sure. And, I don't want to be an island. In retrospect, in all my adventures, I've never been alone for very long. It doesn't suit me.
I was so genuine in my intents and so genuine during training. This has surprised me. But, as Maggie's dad told her during a phone call this week, "Sometimes we plan and then our plans change, and it just IS." What a strong truth. Estoy de acuerdo. (I agree.)

FAQs:

1. No, I have not given it enough time to truly know, TRULY, if I am making the right decision. I could be missing out on something great and I could be annoyed with my simple little life again in the US. I could be missing the opportunity to make a very real difference here. But, I don´t care enough about that to stay. That is a strong truth.

2. Yes, I have considered that this is out and out quitting; reneging on a "contract" I made with myself, the PC and the people of this town. I am not a quitter. There is a first time for everything, supongo (I guess). And right now, the desire to NOT waste 6 months or 2 years of my life and my time with family and friends and the possibility of doing good work at home, too far outweighs the rest of it. I can say that sin verguenza (without embarrassment).

3. No, this is not completely because there is NOTHING to do here right now. That is part of it. But in order to do development work, one needs to cultivate relationships. And in order to do that genuinely, one needs to WANT to get out of bed and be invigorated with the thought of meeting someone new today. I do not have that. And, the idea that a very small change in a town, or one or two presentations to the youth is enough has to be present. Right now, when I weigh the value of that against the value of me being home with my family and friends and not "missing" two years of my life, there is NO comparison.

4. No, I am not completey sure how I will answer those who ask, especially potential employers, why I quit the PC. I think I will say that the work wasn´t for me and the sacrifice of 2 years of my life at this point in where I am in my life wasnt clear to me until I got there and then I decided it was not worth it to me. Or I will say - It wasnt right for me. I made a mistake. And I will move on, I guess.

I was up half the night Sunday night, hasta dos o tres, thinking. I couldnt turn it off. I had made the decision Sunday afternoon for sure, and had told the other members of my group and everything via text message. I had even talked to a few of them who were really surprised, yet supportive. Because I'm Karen, the thoughts started swirling. What am I going to do for work? I have no car! The money I have will run out. I am appearing to everyone, including myself, like a nutcase who can´t just settle into a life for herself but instead bounces from thing to thing like someone with an alcohol problem. :) (okay, i just made that last one up.) Anyway, you know the drill. I was 99.9% sure, and the other .1% kept me up half the night. But then I woke up this morning, and my first thought wasnt to cry or to think, I need to go home! It was instead, "I am going home. It will be okay."

I couldn´t leave this country without first visiting my host family in Itá and telling them in person that I am going, especailly Alé, the 10 year old. Because of the swiftness of the process with the PC, I may not have been able to do that if I told them Monday. So, I stayed in site until early Wednesday a.m. which gave me time to tell people there that I was leaving and pack. Then I went Wednesday to Itá and met up there with Maggie, the other woman who is ETing. We spent the night with our Itá families, which was lovely. They asked all the right questions and listened to my answers and spent a lovely night with me eating awesome homemade pizza. Ale and I played some last mintue games of Uno and I gave her a photo of the group in a frame to remember me.

Right now, I'm in Asuncion and I just told PC that I'm going home. This plan also allowed some of our group, G21, to make it to the city to say goodbye. We had to visit the medical lab and give poop and pee and blood so the US government can be sure we didn't contract anything crazy here. Tomorrow morning, we have to get physicals with the doctor and do some more paperwork stuff. We also have to give back the money we haven't used, plus some, actually, since they pro-rate stuff. Long story. Then we get a ticket home (we'll know when either this afternoon or tomorrow) and we will either be on a plane Saturday night, Sunday morning or Monday at the worst.

Thank you so much for all your kind words and wicked support. If I wanted to stay here, your words of encouragement would have done the trick! I really hope you can support my decision as much as possible without thinking I suck. I have judged people in the past for not giving things enough time. I will never do that again.

I am looking forward to seeing many of you and talking to you. Last night before I fell asleep, I realized that to my list of identity characteristics, I have just added "Peace Corps Quitter." How weird. I will learn from this, as I have from everything else I have done. No doubt.

I will post again after I've finished this journey of leaving the PC. Even this is an adventure. Stool samples aren't easy to give! Especially in the middle of the day when one has already had a satisfying poop that morning...coffee does the trick! :) And it poured rain this morning as we were lugging our bags onto a local bus on the street in Ita. It just never ends. There will be more to this story, I'm sure, before my feet are on US soil once again.

If anyone has a car or a job for sale, shoot me an email! :) Hasta.