Reflections on coming home

Today marks one year since I arrived home from Zambia.   I've been thinking a lot about it lately, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts with you.

Deciding to leave Zambia was hard.  Coming home was the hardest thing I've ever done.  A year ago today I was feeling lost, knowing that I needed to come home but feeling like I'd let down everyone I knew by starting this big adventure and then ending it so soon.  I decided I wanted to join the Peace Corps six years before I actually left, and it turns out six years of hopes and dreams and expectations are hard to let go of.  I wondered how I had managed to think for so long that this was going to be exactly what I wanted to do, only to have it turn out to be something that made me pretty miserable.

A friend from my group made the decision to leave Zambia a few months after I did, and she shared a quote that has really stuck with me.  "Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy."  I think it's a nice concise way of explaining why I left.  Even after all those years of preparation, conversations with RPCVs, discussions in Master's International about expectations, and extensive blog-reading, I found that being a PCV didn't serve me, grow me, or make me happy.  And it's taken me a long time to believe it, but that is a good enough reason to leave.

When I came back I spent a few weeks at home, then moved down to southern Georgia.  I was lucky enough to be offered a job at the Florida Department of Health a few months later, and I've been working there for about nine months now.  I can honestly say I love my job.  It's something different every day, I work with great people, and it gives me endless opportunities to educate people about public health and learn a lot of new things.  Basically it's everything I never knew I needed.  It's too early to know whether I'll want to do this kind of thing long term, but I feel like I learned a lot about myself in Zambia that really helps me clarify what I do and do not want to do with my life and I am so grateful for that.

The hardest thing for me now is explaining to new people that I meet why I left the Peace Corps.  I'm afraid that sometimes they come to the conclusion that I left because I didn't like living without running water and electricity, or that they think I don't think the work PCVs do is valuable.  I think when most people think of the Peace Corps, they think only about the first goal, which is to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.  They imagine it's about teaching English, empowering women and girls, and educating about HIV.  And it absolutely is about all of those things.  But that's only goal one of three.  The other two goals are to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, and to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.  I try to think of those conversations as a continuation of the third goal.  Yes, I decided Peace Corps was not a good fit for me.  But Zambia is an amazing country full of wonderful people, and I would love to go back someday.  And the Peace Corps is a great organization with thousands of amazing volunteers doing great things.  I'm lucky to have been one of them for a little while.

As I said a year ago, on to the next adventure!

Coming Home

I never thought I would have to say this, but after a lot of thought I've decided to end my service early. After just four months in Zambia, I'm coming back to the US of A. It's a hard decision to make, but I'm confident that it's the right one for me. I found a blog from a guy who ET'd from Peace Corps Panama and he explains it better than I ever could:

"The Peace Corps, when you get down to it, is like any other job – if you don’t like a job, you find a new one... I like to use this analogy: you need to buy a new couch for your apartment. You get on craigslist. You find what you think is the perfect couch (you can only see pictures and read the description). You make all of the measurements and find that the couch is the perfect fit. You can’t pack it in your Toyota Corolla, so you rent a U-Haul truck and get a couple of friends to help you move the couch. You’re all set and SO excited. And then you see the couch. And it’s not what you wanted at all. It’s not what you’d thought it would be. You don’t like how it looks or how it smells. It has a few stains you couldn’t see from the picture. So, the question is, do you buy the couch anyway since you put so much effort into getting it in the first place? Well, that’s up to you. But I decided not to buy the Peace Corps couch."

I am generally a pretty happy person, and I wholeheartedly believe that it's important to do what makes you happy, no matter what that looks like or how hard it is.  I have thought for a long time that being a Peace Corps Volunteer would make me happy, but it turned out that I was unhappier than I've ever been.  Part of it was normal settling-in type of stress:  loneliness, isolation, boredom, and struggles with language. All of that is normal, and for most people it gets more manageable as you integrate into your community.  But the real problem for me is something that wasn't going to change as I got settled in.  As soon as I moved into my site I started to realize that the job of a health volunteer is really not what I want to be doing.  I have known for nearly ten years now that I wanted to be an epidemiologist, and while I knew that that's not what a health volunteer does I thought it would be a good experience, something I could be excited about doing for two years.  Instead I found that I didn't like it at all, and it got to the point where I was spending every day just waiting for it to be over, looking at my watch every five minutes, and dreading pretty much everything I was doing.  After a lot of tears, frustration, and conversations with other volunteers, family, and my very patient husband I decided it's just not worth it to be so unhappy (and therefore unmotivated, and therefore not particularly helpful for my community) when I could do something about it.

Even though it was my own decision to leave, it was still really hard.  It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to my community, even after spending such a short time with them.  It was hard to give away my cat, even though I know he'll have a good home with Mr. Chilongo.  It's hard to leave without getting to say goodbye to all of my PCV friends, and to know that I won't get to be there with them for IST, hanging out at the prov house, and future vacations and fun times.  Most of all it's hard to admit to myself that the thing I have wanted for so long and worked so hard for isn't a good thing for me after all.  I feel very fortunate to have had so much support from everyone in Zambia and for the great friends I made during my four months there.

So that's that.  As I write this I am sitting in a restaurant in the Detroit airport drinking tap water with ice (yay!) and listening to a bunch of ignorant people talk about ebola (not yay.)  I'm excited to be home this afternoon, I'm excited to get to live with Luke two years earlier than expected, I'm excited to have arrived home in time for pumpkin spice lattes.  Most of all I'm happy that I had the chance to spend four months in Zambia with the Peace Corps, even if it didn't turn out like I had hoped.  On to the next adventure!

Home Sweet Hut

I moved into my new house a little over a week ago, and since then I've spent a lot of time getting it cleaned, organized, and decorated. Aside from a little flea problem, I really love my house. Now that it's a bit more set up it's starting to feel more like home.

This is the view from the front. The piles of brick are there because there used to be a puppy pen (full of fleas) on the front porch and it was recently demolished.

This is the view from sitting on the front porch. The thing on the left is my dish rack, and the thing on the right is my insaka, which can be used for cooking or chatting with guests or hanging out. Brad (the volunteer before me) left a hammock in there, but it was torn apart by some dogs so you can't sit in it.

To the right of my house you can see my neighbor, Ba Justina's house, and my mango tree.  To the left you can see my icimbusu (latrine) and my ulusasa (bathing shelter). Behind the house there is a clothesline.

Next we have the living room, which is nice and sunny during the daytime if I leave the door open. It's even big enough to store my bike inside. I have a couch, a bookshelf, and a chair that I bought from Brad. I hung maps of the world, Zambia, and the U.S. on the wall for decoration. My candle holders are empty beer and wine bottles, but I covered them in chitenge in an effort to make them look more like decorative candle holders and less like I just have empty beer bottles lying around.

Across from the couch you can see my awesome hut warming present from Mom and the space where I'll hang more pictures once I buy some more paper clips. The door on the right with the blue curtain leads to my bedroom and the door on the left is to the kitchen.

My bed takes up most of the space in my bedroom. It has a mosquito net of course, with a sheet over the top of the net to block dust that falls from the ceiling.

I have a hanging pocket thing where I store some of the things I use every day, and some shelves for other storage. My clothes are currently living in bags, but I went to see the carpenter the other day and he is going to make me a dresser. I also hung up all my shoes on the wall so critters don't climb in them as much, but it's still a good idea to shake them out before you stick your feet in them.

I cook over coals outside so the kitchen is really more of a storage room. I have a table, some shelves for food storage, and a bunch of other stuff that just didn't really fit anywhere else. The yellow containers are how I store my water.

Most of my food is inside of the black plastic bucket at the bottom of the picture, and on the green shelves I have some condiments, tea, canned goods, and cooking utensils. 

My table has a nice shelf underneath for storing dishes, and on top I keep my water filter. Above the table I have some hanging baskets for more storage.

I keep my spices on another shelf, and I have a bunch of other things like  laundry soap and extra plastic bags stored in bags hanging from the wall.

Last you can see my pots and pans hanging from hooks on a rope.  I also hung my empty suitcases up on the wall. Basically anything that can be off the ground should be to keep it safe from critters.

Officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!

On August 29th the CHIPs and REDs from my intake had our swearing in ceremony and officially became Peace Corps Volunteers! The swearing in ceremony was at the ambassador's house, which was super fancy and had a pool and a tennis court and a lot of flags and eagles everywhere.  There were a lot of speeches, a couple groups did their performances from cultural day, and we took a lot of pictures. It was fun (and weird) to see everyone dressed up and wearing makeup and chitenge outfits and looking fancy. The oath that we take is usually administered by the ambassador, but for us it was some guy named Tim.  He has a job title, but I forget what it is.  After the ceremony was over we ate probably the best food we've had so far in Zambia, which included chocolate chip cookies and beef that wasn't all chewy and gross. Then we took a million more pictures and that was that.  It was a really good day and I enjoyed it a lot but I have to say it was a little anticlimactic. After swearing in we were all rushed off to the mall to shop for being posted, so it was just a really hectic day. On to the next adventure-- moving in to my new home!

Cultural Day

One of the final events during PST is cultural day, which is a chance for us to show what we've learned about Zambian culture and share some American culture with our Zambian trainers and homestay families. It went really well and it was a ton of fun.  Unfortunately most of my pictures were taken on my real camera and not my phone, so I can't post them until I have wifi, but I'll try to describe everything as best I can.

One of the most exciting parts of cultural day is that the trainees make American food for lunch.  Theresa, Beth and I volunteered to help organize the meal preparations, which it turns out is rather challenging when you're planning to feed 120 people.  We shopped for food on Monday afternoon and spent Monday evening chopping and preparing with several people, then all morning on Tuesday everyone helped prepare the food and decorate the insaka for the festivities. We made burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, pasta salad, potato salad, napa cabbage salad, rice, vegetarian chili, grilled cheese, rice krispy treats, and apple cinnamon topping for vanilla ice cream.  The cooking part was fun and generally went far better than it could have, especially considering we had only one working burner on the stove, no ovens, and not nearly enough knives and bowls.

We started the ceremony by singing the Zambian national anthem, then ate lunch.  There were a couple speeches by the Peace Corps Zambia country director and the health program director, then speeches from one person in each language group.  I only understood the Bemba speech, and even that one not all the way, but they were all great.  I had to give a speech in Soli thanking the chieftainess, which also went well despite the fact that my Soli ability is limited to reading what was on the paper they gave me.  Then each language group did either a song or a dance in their language. They were all really fun to watch. The Bembas sang a song written by one of our language teachers, which if you translated it into English probably sounds a lot like a song you might expect preschoolers to sing.  I guess that isn't too surprising since we all speak Bemba at approximately three year old level.  After all the local language songs we did an unrehearsed version of the macarena dance because none of us realized we were going to be expected to perform an American song and dance as well.  It was a good last minute choice because all of us know it, but I thought it was a little funny that that's the one piece of American culture we presented during cultural day.

The last thing on the agenda was saying goodbye to our host families. We all exchanged gifts with our bamayos and hugged and took lots of pictures, and then they all left and we all went back to the kitchen to finish what was left of the ice cream from lunch. It was a really good day and a great way to spend my last day in Chongwe before we headed off to Lusaka for swearing in.

Second Site Visit

I just returned from second site visit, where we all got to spend a few days in groups with a current volunteer in our province, then a few days alone at our future sites.  I've been looking forward to second site visit for ages now, and it was so great to finally get to see what Northern Province is like, what my future home is like, meet some people in my village, and meet some other volunteers in Northern at the prov house.

For the first part of my second site visit I went to Chikakala, which is in Mpika district. Ginny and I stayed with Genevieve, a health volubteer who is COSing in a few weeks. Ginny is replacing Genevieve, so she got to spend her entire second site visit at her future site. Genevieve's catchment area is really spread out so we rode bikes around a lot to other villages in the area. We went to an under 5 clinic one day, which is where mothers bring their children to get weighed and track their growth progress, get vaccines, and get vitamin A and dewormed.  We got to give a talk to some of the mothers about nutrition in Bemba, which was really intimidating at first but it was great practice and it got a lot easier as we went.  On a different day we did a village inspection for mosquito nets with the headman and some NHC (neighborhood health committee) members. They had a net distribution about two weeks before we were there, so we went house to house to ask if people had hung their nets yet.  If they had, we asked to see so we could make sure they were hung correctly.  If they hadn't, we asked if we could help hang it for them.  It was a really good way to meet a lot of people and see the village, plus we talked to people at every house about how to care for their nets so I got another chance to practice speaking Bemba.  People were very patient with my slow and not-that-confident attempts at Bemba, which I really appreciated.

Aside from getting a taste for what types of things a health volunteer might do, we also spent a lot of time talking to Genevieve's neighbors, playing with her adorable cat Kasha, cooking, and having Bemba classes with ba Lombe in preparation for our big language exam coming up.  It's always nice to get out of training for a little while and experience something a little more similar to what our lives will actually be like for the next two years, and I had a really good time.

After five days at Genevieve's site, I headed off to my future site.  It's about 20km south of Kasama, the provincial capital. I got to see the house I'll be living in, meet my neighbors, get water from the borehole at the school, and practice cooking for myself on a brazier, and that was just the first day.  Each of us has a host in our village to help facilitate our introductions in the community and show us around, and mine is Mr. Lewis Chilongo, the chairperson of the Musa NHC.  He's really great and I feel very lucky to have a host who is so well respected and involved in the community.  Every day he would stop by a few times just to check in and see how things were going or to take me to meet people.  I went with him to meet the headman, the teachers at the school, the clinic workers, and the principal of the farm training institute nearby.  I also went to church and introduced myself after the service, so I met a ton of people that way. I watched a soccer game at the field behind the school as well, and that was fun except I couldn't help but cringe every time someone kicked the ball because most of them weren't wearing shoes. Ouch.

I was so so excited to finally see my house and my village, and now I'm even more looking forward to moving there. I can already see some potential challenges in my community, but there are even more opportunities and resources and great people so overall I'm super pleased with everything and anxious to get started. Now only a few weeks of training are left before we swear in and become official volunteers!

Mr. Chilongo and me at the host workshop in Lusaka the week before site visit

My new home! 

Site Announcements!

We got our site announcements today! It's been a long week with waiting to find out, especially for the Bembas because we could be placed in three different provinces. They made a big outline of Zambia on the floor with tape and marked each of the available sites on it, and then one by one they called us and told us where we'd be going. 

I am going to Musa in Northern Province.  It's about 20km from the provincial capital of Kasama. My site is 2.5km from the tarmac, and the nearest volunteer is a RAP volunteer named Mike, and he is 20km away.  I'm a second generation volunteer, which means there has been one volunteer there previously and one will be there after me.  The PCV who was visiting us this week at PST told me that the volunteer who is at my site now and is finishing up his service was also an MI from Rollins, so that's fun.  That's pretty much all I know about it at the moment, but next week I'll get to meet my counterpart from the community for a host workshop and the week after that I get to head up there for second site visit.

Even though I know barely anything about my site, I'm absolutely thrilled with my placement and I can't wait to meet my counterpart and find out more.