Coming Home

Last Thursday, I flew into Charlottesville Virginia at 10:00 p.m. after 5 flights and 4 layovers, lots of coffee and interesting conversations with fellow travelers. My 24-hour journey home started with a final flight from Tacloban, Leyte to Manila, where I stayed for three nights while paperwork and medical issues got finished up and logistics were finalized. I said goodbye to many of the friends who would be going their separate ways in the future, flying to a different destination, resuming different lives with different ambitions, horizons, obstacles.

My final night in the Philippines, two good friends who were also leaving joined me at an excessively overpriced immaculate buffet at a nearby Hilton in downtown Manila. It was an ironic ending to Peace Corps service, the notorious Hilton buffet beside the giant Pagcor Casino. The buffet had all-you-can-eat steak, rump roast, shellfish made to order, bottomless drinks, cheesecakes of all different types, really everything you could ever imagine. We wined and dined, laughing and joking about how outrageous we were, treating ourselves to such a lavish feast. After supper, we went back to the Peace Corps’ Pension and sat around laughing and talking with all the other departing volunteers until the wee hours, saying goodbye with hugs and smiles, one by one, until everyone had gone to bed and silence filled the air.

The next morning, the three of us, Bryan, Kristine, and I, got our bags together and jumped in cabs, and later flew out to Tokyo together. We excitedly talked about how we will stay in touch in the future, all of our future exploits, the mountain biking trips, hiking excursions, reunions, all the ways we would stay in contact. After a short layover in Tokyo, we all said goodbye, and went our separate ways. (Kris and Brian are a couple, so they’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the future.) It was sad, and as I said goodbye to my final traveling companions, I was reminded of a birder I worked with in Arizona back in 2002 on a bird crew.

Although only 3 months, the rustic living conditions of our birding field crew up in the remote mountains of Northern Arizona had fused our little bird crew together in much the same way as Peace Corps has done. One day, as we were departing the field site, after taking down the canvass cook tents and packing away the last of the equipment, I went to say goodbye to my friend, Jean Carpenter, a 60-something seasoned birder from Northern Oregon. As I went to hug her goodbye, I began to talk about exchanging addresses, staying in touch, phone numbers, emails, all the ways we could maintain the great relationship we had developed. Jean just looked at me, “We won’t write, and it won’t be the same, so why should we try? Let’s just enjoy the memories of how good this has been.” It felt cold and I was momentarily hurt, but we smiled, and silently parted ways without another word. Jean was a wise lady, and I think I’ll remember her smile and those words more than I would ever have remembered Christmas cards and birthday wishes that we could have insisted upon.

This isn’t to say that I don’t look forward to staying in touch with all of the great friends I’ve met while in Peace Corps, but if it is too hard, and our paths diverge to such an extent as to make it impossible, these great memories have been priceless, and I am satisfied with all of the good times we have had, without the need for platitudes and occasional remembrances.

The Peace Corps experience is one that is not for the faint of heart. It will stretch a person in very unexpected ways, often unsettling ways. It will amplify a volunteer’s good traits as well as the bad. I don’t think I would ever suggest that a person not undertake service as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I would just suggest that nothing be assumed, to be ready for mental, physical, and spiritual change that will bend a soul until it splinters. And while all of these changes could take place, while unexpected loss and struggle can and will occur, the experience offers a chance for personal and professional growth that can not be obtained in many other ways.

To all of those future Peace Corps Volunteer Prospects, remember that you won’t get paid much, you’ll probably get really sick a couple times, Peace Corps is just a Beaurocratic as any other federal organization, you’ll miss home, your family, and you may not get much affirmation, people may not respect or understand you, but at the end of the experience, you will have gained insight and understanding into a culture and way of life that you could never have seen and understood otherwise. Whether or not The Buddha said it, I think it holds true that “In order to gain anything, you must lose everything.”