The Northern Coast

The Northern Coast
The Northern Coast--photo by Zack Thieman

Friday, August 2, 2013

Goodbye sucks, and other revelations


Two plus years of service crammed into two bags plus a backpack

I can't believe it, but this blog post is being written in the USA as I am now officially a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I finished my service in Peru on July 24th, I'm home visiting family and friends, and I've been back on US soil for a week. And it's weird. I really wanted to post one last time in Peru before I left because I anticipated there would be a storm of new emotions and things going on the second I left that would be stories of their own, but this will have to do. It's just too much for one post to talk about the end of one life and the beginning of a new one.

My last week in site was overwhelming and filled with parties and teary goodbyes, and I didn't even get to say goodbye to everyone I wanted to. It's so hard to just get up and leave from two-years of relationships and experiences, so of course it didn't go exactly as I wanted, but I left with my heart overfilled. I had a series of farewell parties thrown for me ranging from the high school, to a friend's host family in a neighboring town, to the municipality. The last week in my site was one big party filled with kind words, occasionally booze, and tears. Lots and lots of tears. (Pictures below--yes, even of the tears).

Of course some people were harder to say goodbye to than others. My host family, my really good counterparts who became my friends, my volunteer friends, and the kids from my health promoters youth group. Saying goodbye to 14 and 15 year-olds is hard because you just don't know what's going to be next for them. I can't be there for the graduation of my oldest students, I can't be with the other students as they get older and move closer to their graduation. Are they going to stay out of trouble? Are they going to finish high school? What are they going to do after high school? What is going to happen to them? I invested a lot of time and energy into relationships with these kids who are still very much in the development stage of figuring themselves out and anything could tip them in a different direction. The adult friends I made will probably have very few differences between now and the next time I see them, but the kids could become completely different people. 

This if course spun me off into thinking of all the things I could've done better during my service. No matter what you have done, there is always a way to do it better. My last week of service was filled with a lot of strong feelings and emotions, but battling off the feeling of regret was something I dealt with constantly. Did I do everything I could have? Did I try hard enough? 

Could I have ever done enough?

Like I said, it was (and still is) a battle, but I know I did what I could with what I had and what's done is done. Also, it helped to have people in my community tell me a lot of nice things I never expected to hear. A friend of mine who finished service before me said in the end of your service a bunch of people come out of the woodwork and you find out how people have felt about you and your work that you didn't know before. I've said it before, but being a volunteer is a pretty thankless job and you almost never get any sort of accolades. However in my last week of service I received more than I ever expected. Teachers whom I barely worked with told me with ernest how much of an impact I had on the students. Mother's from my escuela de padres told me how important my work was and how lucky their kids were to have me working in the school. People showered me with presents and kind words and it kept going on like that as people learned I was leaving.

But more than the kind words and presents I received as I was parting, the relationships I created in my last two years are a testament to what my time spent in Peru has meant. The people in my site and my host family will always be in my heart, and I think I'll be the same for them. Of course saying goodbye to my host family was extremely difficult. My host mom gets pretty emotional pretty easy (she always calls herself "llorona") so a lot of tears were shed there. My host dad stayed stoic to the end only demonstrating his emotional strife through excessive household projects that he worked on constantly up until the minute I left the house. He did leave me with various parting words, all of which came back to the same theme: I'm part of the family, and I am always welcomed (and expected) back at the house in the future. 

Saying goodbye sucks. And being separated from a life and friendships that you built from basically nothing over a two-year span in a foreign country is jarring and sad. Preparing yourself to leave and return home where people may not understand all of that is also hard.

All of this sadness in leaving just goes to show how much of a positive experience I've had in Peace Corps, and I really do think it goes both ways. One day I was sitting with my good friend Lupe, the obstetrician who worked with me in my health promoters youth group, and she was talking about how sad it was that I was leaving (Peruvians really like to drag out the "How sad that you're leaving. Oh how terribly sad, you're leaving a hole in our hearts, etc etc"). I was just nodding and agreeing and trying not to bawl my eyes out, and then she said something that I didn't expect but really stuck. She said, "Everyone is going to miss you so much. Did you know that everyone really likes you? I don't know a single person that can say anything bad about you. Before you came everyone thought [US] americans were rude, cold, disinterested people. But now that everyone has met you they can see that isn't true."

I know it isn't much, but that is Peace Corps Goal #2! "Helping promote a better understanding of Americans." Somehow knowing that helped me battle back some of the regret. I told Lupe how that is one of Peace Corps' goals, and now I'm heading home to work on goal #3, to promote understanding of Peru to my fellow Americans. 

On paper that is Peace Corps; three simple goals, two years, one country. But it's all the stuff in between that makes a Peace Corps service, and it's different for every single person who has done it over the last 52 years. Do I think I'll ever be able to do it justice in writing? Will I ever be able to give a "five-minute elevator speech" that truly conveys what my service was about?

Simply put, no. But maybe I'm not supposed to. Nothing will change what my time in Peru has meant for me, and I can only do so much to explain things to others who have never been there. But if I can get my small Peruvian town to think US Americans aren't a bunch of jerks, then maybe I can get the US Americans I know to understand a little about Peru and it's people and what my life was like there. The beauty of it is while I closed the chapter of my life when I was a PCV, I will forever be an RPCV, so I have time. 

****
The multiple despedidas thrown for me and the kind words said about me were more than I ever expected, and too varied to go into detail. Here are some pictures from a few of them.

My despedida at the high school. I'm sitting at the head table with one of my main counterparts and the director of the school. 

The students arranged some different performances for me. 
The back chalkboard was decorated and signed by all the teachers
Some of my favorite students dancing 
Dancing with my best teacher friends
Williams performed some songs
Another typical dance. It rounded out my experience at the school very well.


Lunch with my site mate Zack's host family plus friends (Kike and Sue!)


My health promoters youth group, Pasos Adelante, meeting one last time

One of the gifts made for me (by Gerardo)

A formal farewell at the town municipality
My host mom gave a very nice speech about me
Receiving ridiculously nice gifts I didn't expect
A plaque thanking me for my service in Mocupe 
Giving my teary farewell speech
Last dinner in site-- arroz con pato (duck and rice)-- my favorite!
My host family checking out my going away present for them-- a photo album with photos from the last two years
The host family at my host grandma's house. L-R- Host mom, host grandma, host uncle, host cousin, me, host dad, host brother, host sister
My host family! Our only photo of all of us together

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