Near Wild Heaven

Surrealism. That's what this is. A few days ago I went to meet the so-called newbies - the fresh batch of Peace Corps volunteers - at the airport. Slightly dazed but eager, they were full of excitement and questions. They'd literally just stepped into the next phase of their lives. It was so easy to feel excited for them and to rattle off answers just as quickly as they could ask them. Everyone on the staff and all the current volunteers were all smiles and laughs. Later, I felt like I'd been momentarily possessed by some happy-go-lucky, huggy spirits that sought to falsely portray PC life. I think they may have succeeded.

My answers to the soon-to-be volunteers were never lies - it is a great time and you do make great friends and it is the best of times (and the worst) and it is totally worth the struggles...sometimes. How does one give a snapshot of PC life that is accurate but not disheartening? That's encouraging, but realistic? That's hopeful, but not toooo hopeful? I attempted to lace my answers with clever wordings and sometimes just by throwing back questions trying to get the question to be narrow enough that I could give honest, positive answers. I was walking a fine line, and probably just confused people even more. Hell, I think I confused myself.

Some time ago the country director dedicated a letter to the topic of these little online journal things - about how they inform and influence incoming or potential PCVs. This is a quote: "the attitude of an RPCV who's been home for two years is often a whole lot more positive, balanced and, I submit, realistic than many PCVs who are in their first year at site." Hm. The letter when on to state that "we all have a responsibility to prepare the newest members of our team for Peace Corps". I often think that some of the staff considers that to mean pumping people full of facts about the country and quirky stories - and both are indeed useful. However, there's a certain Peace Corps reality, the most influential aspect of it, that we face that people don't outline well - the emotional journey.

Everything here feels so raw and every emotion tends to be extreme. A great time feels like you are having the time of your life and a bad time seems like you are three steps from checking yourself into a mental ward. The ping-ponging of your emotions even seems out of your hands. One moment you are dashing towards a touchdown and then some invisible linebacker comes and slams you so hard you can barely breathe. You're playing dodgeball - not with a soft, plastic ball, but with a mace. Think I'm exaggerating? Think again. Every day I wake up unsure about how I really feel, unsure if I am capable of playing the hand that the day will deal me Often it seems like a game, but then other times it feels like my life and sanity are the trophies I hope to be awarded and it just doesn't seem so fun any more. It feels very unsafe.

But, there is the other side. You'll laugh harder with and feel more connected to your fellow volunteers (and faster) than you have to people in years - perhaps ever. You really share a huge life experience with people - you lean on each other, encourage each other and get to know the ins and outs of each other with profound clarity. When you have even the smallest success it feels greater than the enormous ones you had back home. You reintroduce the concept of "first times" into your life, and that can be really amazing. You reshape and redefine yourself. You get to know yourself in a way you never understood before - your strengths and weaknesses, your assets and liabilities and you'll do it with people also growing and expanding - people eager to learn and share. It feels very safe.

Confused yet?

Shortly after leaving the airport, I began my multi-hour journey home and absent-mindedly put on REM's Out of Time. Turns out the album hits a lot of the themes of the PC experience. It is an Endgame - it seems like the rollercoaster is over and then suddenly there's another hill and dip. You're so close to freedom - you're unshackled from the expectations and pressures of home and family and professionalism... "those barricades can only hold for so long"...you "breathe at the thought of such freedom". There will likely be the saddest dusk you've ever seen (or at least feel like it) and you will turn towards believing in (and hoping for) miracles with a tired head and a heartache...Half a World Away. You move in a still frame, howl at the moon; morning will find you laughing; up and down....Low. Knocked silly, knocked flat, sideways down - these things they pick you up and they turn you around... I've everything to show, everything to hide... I would give my life to find it, I would give it all - catch me if I fall... Country Feedback is all too real.

Know what to expect? Think you do? I hope not. You don't. It's better and worse than you think. Be prepared for that. For your skin to not feel like your own and finally feel like your own. Be prepared to feel like everything is finally real, and yet totally fabricated at the same time. Luckily for PCVs when you check your baggage in at the airport they don't have an emotional baggage limit. If they did, every PCV would have some serious fines to pay. Somehow there's this idea when you get on the plane that your physical luggage will go with you but your emotional luggage will stay behind or be transformed. Unfortunately, there is no on-plane lobotomy and the baggage handlers often make mistakes. You arrive as the version of you that you were before. What you do with that is up to you. You can ignore the demons or wrestle with them. You can fight or flight. The best part? It's all up to you. The worst? It's all up to you.

I think that Carl (the Country Director) might be right: the view of returned volunteers is probably more positive and balanced than those of us still in the trenches. However, I don't know that I think it's more realistic. At some point the rose-colored glasses come out and history, instead of being written by the soldiers in war time, is written by the victors afterwards. We all know how that works. If choosing between coming in as upbeat, positive and optimistic or negative and cynical my advice is to choose all of the above. They're all valid and all realistic. I say this not to overwhelm you or discourage you, but to take my responsibility to prepare "the newest members of our team" seriously.

Throw your heart open wide. Be prepared. Leave the expectations at home. It's going to be a bumpy, but amazing, ride. Welcome aboard!