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!
