January 5, 2016
After 17 months of service, I am choosing to terminate my Peace Corps service early (to ET.)
I am taking a position at a company called Break A Difference, managing volunteer sites for college Alternative Spring Breaks and corporate groups. I will be moving to Baltimore in the middle of January after a quick visit to New Jersey.
In short, Peace Corps Dominican Republic is no longer the right place for me.
It has been difficult to understand myself and explain to others, because each volunteer has a different experience, each site offers a different environment, and each country has its own challenges. It is a highly personal situation.
So after, well, months of thinking about it (many volunteers have the idea bouncing around in the back of their heads,) the decision was made. I had an ah-ha moment, a breakthrough. The straw that broke the camel’s back was placed and that was that. Actually, about a week before I made the decision, my mom had bought tickets for the family to visit the DR in March. At that point I was still pretending/hoping I could last until then. Later, it became obvious to me that I could not, or would not, stay until even February. The thought came, I made a phone call to another volunteer to talk about it, and then I set a date a month in the future on which I would either make the call to my boss or recommit.
A few days later I called my mom to tell her I might be leaving. The conversation took unexpected turns and some opinions, truths, and tears came out. I am lucky because the door to my parents’ house is always open to me. I am lucky to have this support and this safety net. My mom’s biggest concern was my finding a job. How will this decision ruin my future?
About two days after I talked to my mom, my future boss contacted me to remind me that he was still interested in my joining his company. He contacted to remind me, because a few months earlier I had emailed a number of previous bosses and leaders to ask for advice for my post Peace Corps career search. His contacting me at in December, months later, was perfectly timed. After that, everything kind of started rolling. I applied, Skyped with my future coworker/manager, and was formally offered the position. I accepted and started looking for apartments.
It took a while for my family to get used to the idea. I had limited contact with them and depending on the person, they weren’t used to talking or communicating effectively. My family members were who made this decision harder for me. In one sense I was glad, because to think about the situation with a new perspective and new sense of urgency helped. I also made personal, internal leaps and bounds as I realized how my parents act towards me and how it affects me. Because of lack of in-person communication and sensitivity of the subject, I wrote out an e-mail that I sent to my parents and siblings to explain my thoughts. It took a while and some hashing out of details, but eventually they understood.
The volunteer friends I told showed nothing but love and support and I cannot express how grateful I am for them and their advice. **Shoutout to Caitlin for being with me during the final days (and all the previous days before duh)**
The ET process took 2 days and was mostly paperwork and other errands and housekeeping. Once the staff knew my decision and were sure I was sure, everything moved quickly.
I’m very excited for the next phase, for the adventures a new city brings, for the challenges of a new job.
So why was Peace Corps no longer right for me?
It wasn’t worth it anymore.
Partly because I wasn’t satisfied with myself, my job, or my life, partly because of roots I haven’t dug out yet, and partly because of explanations that I do not feel like sharing online.
Another volunteer who recently ETed put it beautifully:
“It was draining part of my soul that I didn’t want to see go. I knew I could have stayed and that something positive would have come, but I recently realized that it would have been at too great a personal cost. . . the greatest gift I could give myself would be to liberate myself.”
In my e-mail to my family mid-December, I wrote:
“I am leaving because if I stay I will become a bitter, ungrateful, apathetic person. I am privileged in that I can find work I may enjoy and I plan on taking full advantage of that privilege.”
Though I have grown in many ways, I am also much more cynical and jaded now. I am the least spiritual/religious I have ever been and I’m much less friendly to strangers, especially if they are male. My goals for my future are much smaller and quieter.
To try to break it down, the social demands of development work were what stalled me. The pressure to visit neighbors everyday, all the time, was difficult to manage. I wasn’t being an effective volunteer because I was shutting myself out and down. As an introvert, I never had time to really recover. Even when I was with volunteers, the conversations always circled around our jobs, because that is what are lives were.
Now, all volunteers face these problems. Wanting to stay in their houses all day or having ‘campo guilt,’ which is when you feel guilty for not spending time in your community or with your community members. Totally normal! This topic comes out again and again when volunteers come together to sympathize, empathize, and decompress.
I’m not pushing my sleeves up, putting my head down, and slapping on a smile to stroll through my community because I don’t think it is worth it anymore. I wasn’t thriving; I was wilting. I felt like I was wasting time in the campo when I wanted to be working, at least becoming financially independent from my parents. Forcing myself to find ways to pass time felt ridiculous. If I was going to feel like this for another ten months, I wouldn’t be proud of my RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) title. What would it have meant? That I dragged myself through an unfulfilling, ineffective, unsatisfying ten months? That I didn’t make the choices to make my life better? Is that something to be proud of?
My values, ambitions, and goals have shifted and the job I have no longer fits with them.
Peace Corps work has a great mission and volunteers have done and continue to do amazing things. I liked the work I was doing. Teaching sex ed in the high school was the best part of my week. In the classroom, I busted several myths about sex and encouraged students to talk openly and scientifically about their sexual organs and lives. I am so proud of my women’s group for enthusiastically doing home visits to increase the amount and quality of health information circulating. I spent time each week teaching my neighborhood girls new games, puzzles, and riddles and reinforced how brilliant they are and can be.
If years later I wonder if I am made a mistake, it will be a good reflection. If I am not much happier in my next location or next job, it will be another opportunity to dig deep inside and try to figure out why. If these feelings and thoughts are only symptoms of being 23, then I am excited to add more cities, adventures, and perspectives to my short life’s resume. When I miss the DR, my volunteer friends, and community members, I will remember how much fun I had and how much I have grown. I will remember to live in the moment and use the skills I gained from life as a PCV.
Overall, I decided this experience is no longer the best choice for me right now. I have a hard time trying to describe it all, but overall it just felt Wrong.
I am so grateful for having done Peace Corps. I am much more confident and much kinder to myself. I learned how to be a neighbor and a teacher. For the first time, I became a dog mom, skinny-dipped, SCUBA dived, learned to dance bachata and merengue, and did another ton of new cultural and life things. I read 60 books during my service, worked on learning how to work out, learned to cook rice, planted some stuff, and lived by myself for the first time. I visited nine other volunteers at their sites and had eight visitors in my home. I speak Spanish now! I can chill by myself for long periods of time, in a plastic chair or waiting in line or for the bus. I rediscovered that I really like to write. I have grown and developed into a person who is no longer intimidated by the future or the unknown. Peace Corps has taught me that whatever comes my way, its going to be alright and I will figure out how to handle it. It showed me what a community leader is, both in my Dominican community and in my volunteer circles. It showed me most people help, even when they don’t benefit from their actions. It taught me about sustainability, diversity, and privilege. It helped me redefine or expand the definitions of words such as “home,” “success,” and “leadership.” I feel like I have been on every spot of my emotional range, sometimes in one day, and learned to accept and manage that. I have learned that I am human and I have forgiven myself for that.
Peace Corps has given me the skills and confidence to quit Peace Corps. This is a difficult decision, but I am sure of it.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for trying to understand.
Pa’lante!
“In every job I’ve taken and every city in which I’ve lived, I have known that it’s time to move on when I’ve grown as much as I can. Sometimes moving on terrified me. But always it taught me that the true meaning of courage is to be afraid, and then, with your knees knocking, to step out anyway. Making a bold move is the only way to advance toward the grandest vision the universe has for you. If you allow it, fear will completely immobilize you. And once it has you in its grip, it will fight to keep you from ever becoming your best self.” — Oprah Winfrey
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” — Anias Nin
More about my Early Termination experience:
