Four years ago I remember driving with my family and best friend up to Fort Collins to move into a college dorm room. I was excited but terrified at the same time, wondering who I would meet and what I would learn. I remember hearing that college wasn’t for everyone and not knowing if it was for me or not but still going because - hey I was a good student, the college thing sounds kind of cool and maybe it’ll help me find a good job.
A year and a half later I remember being nervous for an interview to be a peer mentor for the Key Service Community that had gotten me through my first year of college. I was applying for my junior year but was asked in my second follow-up interview if I would be willing to jump in early since they had a spot open. I was slightly in disbelief; I had never really considered myself a leader but took the opportunity hoping that I could meet the expectations.
Four months ago I was sitting in my college graduation ceremony. I couldn’t hear what the people on stage were saying because all the speakers were pointed towards my family and friends. Instead I heard echoes of all the support I had accumulated over the four years - from old friends, new friends, lovers, family, mentors, professors, authors of books, co-workers and sometimes even random people on a bus. I couldn’t help but to rock my cheeseburger smile.
Two months ago I remember Freaking Out the day before leaving to Washington D.C because I didn’t think I had packed any of the right clothes. I cried in the security line after saying good-bye to my father – sad to be leaving, wondering how I had gotten there and having no idea what the next two years of my life were going to look like. My anxieties momentarily fell away when I met other Peace Corps trainees who too had not studied Malagasy that much. A week later I was meeting my Malagasy host family, terrified about the next few hours until I could disappear into my room.
Currently, I am sitting at the Peace Corps training center. It’s my favorite time of day when the shadows start becoming longer and longer. My fingers are remembering how to use a key board on a friend’s laptop and another friend is calling my name. I’m wearing clothes from the U.S. that will not be washed in a machine for the next two years. I am constantly shooing bugs to get out of my face and my stomach is still out of wack from two days ago because there is something wrong with the rum in this country! I feel like I hear poetry in the words I am writing because ever since I’ve gotten here I’ve actually had time to write it, maybe it’s because there are fewer distractions here.
Tomorrow we leave to the capital and soon we will be sworn-in as Peace Corps volunteers. Training “technically” has been 10 weeks, but really it has only been 8 since the first one didn’t really have any training and this last one was full of presentations, language assessments, good-byes and preparing to get to site. I’ve given presentations on diarrhea, nutrition, reproductive health, sanitizing water, respiratory infections and breastfeeding – all in Malagasy (Betsileo dialect) and in front of people from the community. I’ve killed a chicken, I’ve lived with a Malagasy family who I have really come to love, broken several Malagasy fomba (tradition/culture norms) and been awarded the “Most likely to eat the most Malagasy street food” superlative by my fellow trainees.
All 42 of us have made it through training and all of us will be heading out to our individual sites to be on our own for two years. I am once again terrified. I am scared of leaving all the new friends I have made. I am scared of being the only foreigner in my community. I can only imagine what it is going to feel like to watch the Peace Corps car drive away and I spend my first minutes in what will be my home for the next two years. Yes I will have a community all around me but somehow I will still experience a type of solitude I have Never experienced before… I am nervous about working in the CSB II/commune hospital. I am nervous about my language. I am nervous about what I am going to eat the first week. I have never felt this kind of horrified before.
I recognize there may be some people who are bit worried about me after reading that – maybe even wondering what the hell I’m doing here
. . .
I received a gift from the Women’s Studies department when I graduated. It is a picture of Audre Lorde with a quote:
“When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
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