October 30 - From Africa, To Alaska, and Points In Between

Many times during my last months as a Peace Corps volunteer, my mother encouraged me to post one last “Goodbye to Benin” blog post.  Most other volunteers did on their blogs.  I didn't, and to be honest that's partly because leaving was difficult, in many different ways, and sitting down to write a blog post about how I'm feeling always makes me feel it more acutely.  But I've had some time, so here you go.

I had a good departure from Peonga, all in all.  I was emotional at times (pretty often actually) during my last two weeks at post, and learned to give myself long walks or bike rides outside of village almost every day, time to think.  Work continued right up to the end, something I was pretty proud of.  In fact, two days before I left I was out in a rice field, transplanting seedlings with the farmer I've been helping.   I also had the opportunity to meet my replacement, which made leaving easier.  She came for her two-week post visit, and we overlapped for one week.  Showing her around, introducing her to people, and seeing how excited her work partners were to meet her made me feel good.  I was happy to see that she really liked Peonga, just like me, and I feel like the village is in good hands.  In the evening of my last day, she and I hiked the hill next to the village.  As the sun set, we sat looking at our village.  “Are you nervous?”  she asked me, and I told her the truth – that it was hard to leave, but I was sure things would be fine. 

She was also there for my going away party, just a low-key gathering with my womens group, a few days before I left.  Thanks to her I have some pictures of the event.  I'd provided the group with a bit of money to buy rice and eggs to cook, we sat around under a tree, eating, and a few members including me gave thank-you speeches.  Then they presented me with a gift, a woven pagne (wrap skirt) and headscarf.  I wore the outfit the day I took the taxi out of village, to Parakou.  Then I spent a week in Cotonou, doing exit paperwork and interviews at the Peace Corps office, before heading home.

I had some adventures on the trip home, stopping in both Amsterdam and Iceland, and I'll post photos of those experiences if I have time.  Then came about a month and a half of time split between the Adirondacks and West Virginia, where my parents are living right now.  A major highlight – doing the Adirondack Canoe Classic, a 90 mile canoe race through the Adirondacks, with two peace corps friends and my dad!  It was a challenging and amazing experience.  We had great matching hoodies from Benin, and even got a mention in the paper.  And it was good to see fellow volunteers who had also just left Benin, and compare notes on what the experience has been like.  

It's hard to describe, what it is like to be done with Peace Corps.  You know what?  Peace Corps was pretty hard.  One of the first things that struck me about life in America is how easy everything is.  Cooking, doing laundry, not being too hot, are part of it, but I'm more thinking about interacting with people.  Being understood, having conversations, making friends, being myself is really easy here.  Missing Benin isn't like missing the Grand Canyon, or my family's home at Thanksgiving– places that are all easy, simple to miss.  When I miss Benin, I'm missing a place that I loved, and still do love – but also a place that was sometimes difficult to be, sometimes draining.  As the saying goes, “Peace Corps is the highest highs and lowest lows of your life.”  Well, having those highs and lows, living life that fully, can leave you a bit tired.  It can also be disorienting to leave a part of your life where, as a Peace Corps volunteer, every moment of your life was part of your role, for better or worse.  Now that I've come home, I'm not a Peace Corps Volunteer, an exhilirated, tired, motivated, bored, frazzled, grateful Peace Corps Volunteer, any more.  I am....well, I'm not quite sure. For me, Peace Corps was a life-long dream, the one thing I always knew I wanted to do.  When you've achieved your life-long dream, what happens next?

Being at home, thinking through all that stuff, was sometimes challenging.  I had some really good times – I got to visit most of my relatives, did the canoe race as I already mentioned, visited Cornell University in Ithaca to look into graduate school, and traveled in New York State for a bit with my Dad and his former Peace Corps counterpart from Nepal– they're still friends, almost 50 years later!  But now and then, little things would happen – I'd talk too much about Benin, or I'd see a photo of someone from my service, and I'd have to leave the room to collect myself.  And while I knew I had time to figure out what was next in life,  I didn't really like feeling in limbo, just thinking about everything. 

So I did the only logical thing: move to Alaska! About a month ago, I was offered an internship in Sitka, Alaska through the Student Conservation Association.  That's where I am right now, working at the Sitka National Historical Park.  Life in Sitka is really good.  I really enjoy my work at the park, and am surrounded by beautiful nature.  It rains all the time, which is probably the only thing that will cure me of my thirst for rain born in the hot, long dry seasons I knew in Peonga.  And just being productive, going about life, having errands to run and housekeeping to do and new people to meet, feels really good.  I live in a place where there's only 17 miles of road, I can watch whales with my binoculars on my lunch break, when the locals talk about going “down south” they mean Seattle.  And while I am in America, my housemate just came upstairs to my apartment asking to borrow my headlamp because she's cooking dinner, her kitchen light is out, and she can't see her food.  Cooking by headlamp – things haven't changed that much after all.     

 Sometimes, in the evenings here, I curl up in bed with a 3-minute video I took before leaving village. The video is just what I see walking through market.  I weave between stalls, greet my friends, look at vegetables...watching it, I can slip right back into Peonga, feel the heat and the dust and hear the language, relive three very typical minutes of my daily life.  That life was a pretty special one.  Really, Peace Corps was everything I wanted. I'm already feeling more at peace about having left, coming to terms with what that experience was all about and figuring out how I want to build on it and apply what I learned to what happens next.   After all, I've already achieved my life's dream – now I can do anything!