Uprooting and Re-potting: My evacuation as a Peace Corps Volunteer
As we wait in our homes anticipating the end of the quiet chaos that is COVID-19 I can’t help but think about what my life before the pandemic was like. A little over a year ago I was saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, preparing for (what I thought would be) 27 months of adventure, tackling challenges, and learning a new language as a Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia. At 25 years old, I was infected with a newfound love of traveling and living abroad after having taught English in Shanghai for a year. I was eager to make a difference, experience a new culture, and run away from the black hole of baggage, disappointment, and societal expectations that America offered.
I quit my jobs, packed my bags, and hopped on a plane to Washington D.C. where I met the thirty-six other individuals who would be my cohort in Armenia. Some of them were younger than me and freshly graduated from college. Others older, with flourishing careers that they had left behind. Some of them were even repeat volunteers, who had already dedicated more than two years of their lives to the Peace Corps and building friendships abroad. This group of people constantly inspired me and a year later I believe that while I may never speak to them again, I have a much more developed understanding of my own country than before.
Fast forward a year. It’s March 2, 2020. There was one reported case of Corona virus in Armenia. An Armenian man had flown from Tehran to the capital city of Yerevan. Fortunately, he went straight to the hospital and he and his family (as well as the taxi drivers he came into contact with) were put into quarantine. The whole country held it’s breath for a minute and the education ministry declared that school was canceled for a week. A week later nothing had happened and no new cases were reported and life went back to normal. Despite Iran being the hotbed for the pandemic in the middle east and the next country over, many volunteers and Armenians alike assumed that Armenia would be safe. The virus was dismissed as the “Chinese disease”. No one could have thought that things were about to suddenly change for the worse.
On May 12, 2020 we got an email from Peace Corps Armenia staff saying that the incoming class of new volunteers were being told that there was a hold on their PST and that they wouldn’t be allowed to come to Armenia. The situation had once again changed. Several travelers who came from Italy had tested positive and many more were now in isolation. My heart sank. That morning I received a text message from my partner who lives in America that I needed to call him as soon as I got his message. He told me over the phone that he was going to have to cancel the trip out to Armenia that we had been planning for months. It was going to be the first time I could see him in a year and we were both crushed. President Trump had restricted travel to the US for non-US citizens and the Armenian government was asking all travelers coming into Armenia to self-isolate for 14 days. Flights were starting to get canceled between Europe and Armenia. Suddenly we were being told that as volunteers all un-essential travel plans were being restricted. So many of us had planned spring vacations and even trips back to the US to see family or to attend important job interviews.
On March 13, 2020 I was in Yerevan for a health appointment. Several other volunteers happened to be in Yerevan at the time and there was so much speculation and uncertainty. And yet, I don’t think that any of us truly believed that we would all be sent home soon as we sat in one of Yerevan’s delightful gastropubs for lunch. At around 1 pm we received a text message from our Safety & Security advisor telling us that Standfast had been activated. For the un-initiated, Peace Corps has an emergency action plan (EAP) with several phases. Standfast requires all volunteers to remain at their respective sites with their emergency bags packed and ready in case we move to the evacuation phase. Unfortunately I was in Yerevan and my site was a remote village five hours away from the capital city. I was told to leave on the first marshrutka the next morning and to prepare to stay at site until told otherwise.
That night the border with Georgia, the last remaining open border providing Armenia with land access to the rest of the world, was closed and it seemed like evacuation was becoming a real possibility. Through the grapevine we heard about other Peace Corps posts sending their volunteers home. But despite everything it wasn’t until March 15, 2020 that we got the go-ahead to evacuate. I distinctly remember the moment I heard about the evacuation. I had gotten sick of refreshing my email and was watching Netflix when something compelled me to check again. Our interim Country Director had finally sent the instructions for evacuation but we were told that we were getting early close of service status.
Peace Corps, being a product of the federal government, has so many acronyms and terminology. What the email was saying in layman’s terms is that I was now a Peace Corps alumna and that they were cutting my service short after only a year. It meant I was never going to get to wear lavender at my friend’s wedding. I wouldn’t have the chance to meet my friend’s newborn daughter. I could never get to celebrate Easter again with my host family. I was never going to get to start my own garden in the back yard or learn how to can and pickle food with my neighbors. I wouldn’t get the chance to go to Jermuk with my neighbor or visit Tbilisi, Georgia with my Peace Corps buddies. I wouldn’t even get the chance to say good bye to my counterpart and my students because Armenia was under a state of emergency and people were staying home.
I spent the next few hours saying goodbye to my close friends and neighbors. It seemed like I was moving in a dream. My school director spoke solemnly as she peeled potatoes in her kitchen. My neighbor and her daughter consoled me with homemade paklava, my favorite, as I cried in their living room. I signed my name on the axe I had been using to chop my firewood and gave it to them as a gift to remember me by. My counterpart, staying in a different city at the time, was in shock that I had to leave and that we couldn’t hug goodbye. That was the hardest part. The next morning was her daughter’s birthday party but all she could think about was coming back to the village someday and finding me gone.
The next morning I received a call from one of the regional managers asking me to prepare to leave the village the next morning. Apparently roads were being closed and the government has started putting checkpoints in place. Being in the furthest Marz (province) from the capital city, staff was making it a priority to get us out of our sites as soon as possible. What had originally seemed like a far away bad joke was suddenly one that felt very real.
I was utterly unprepared. I began giving away everything. I carried armfuls of spices, food, and household products to give away to various friends in the village, explaining between tearful gasps that I was going back to America and I was so grateful for everything that they had done for me. One of my best friends in the village, a 27 year old mother of two, hugged me in her corridor and told me she would never forget me. Meanwhile her youngest son pilfered through the random things I had brought over. It all felt so hectic and so unreal.
That day, we heard the announcement that PC Washington had suspended all volunteer activity and that all 7,000 + volunteers were ordered to come home. The next morning I woke up to a blizzard and it wasn’t until about 2 in the afternoon that I safely arrived at the Peace Corps office in Yerevan, 2 duffle bags and a backpack in hand, and armed with adrenaline. My group was the last to evacuate. There was very little ceremony to it. No Close of service conference. No workshops on how to get a job after service or how to get over reverse culture shock. We kept ourselves busy weighing luggage, labeling our suitcases, small financial-related tasks and visiting our Peace Corps doctors one last time for our health check-up vouchers.
As part of Peace Corps tradition we rang a bell and were allowed to speak. Some of us rang the bell with few words. Others of us struggled to get out what we wanted to say in rambling paragraphs. As I stood there with unwashed hair and in clothes that I had worn for several days straight I felt dread. I wasn’t ready to ring that bell. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I made excuses, asking others to go first, but finally it became my turn. With broken Armenian and an even more broken heart I shared how Armenia had given me a real home and community and I was forever in her debt. And just like that my service was done.
On March 18, 2020, just a few days past my year mark in Armenia, I boarded a plane to Doha leaving everything behind me. My goodbyes to the rest of the group were robotic and unemotional. We were starting to feel the jetlag and exhaustion in the stillness of the mostly empty Hamad International airport. Just as I had gone past a second row of security and had made it to my gate I saw a message on my phone from one of my best friends in Peace Corps asking where I was. I guided her to the glass wall separating my gate from the rest of the terminal and we said our goodbyes through the wall. What a fitting metaphor for the whole experience.
Coronavirus had seemed like this invisible far-away monster but without a single visual sign it had suddenly put a wall between us and our lives, our work, and our futures in Armenia.
From Doha I boarded the plane to LAX. There were several of us evacuees on the plane. Another volunteer from Armenia. A girl who volunteered in Tanzania. Several from Uganda. And others from South Africa. You could spot us from a mile away: tired young people laden with enormous hiking backpacks and the colorful yarn from our respective stagings still tied to our bags, a lonely reminder of a happier time.
From Los Angeles, I boarded a plane to San Francisco where my partner picked me up donning a mask. There was an awkward silence that followed me from baggage claim all the way back to the house. Over time it has lessened. But the discomfort hasn’t gone away.
I spent two weeks in isolation as I performed the mandatory self-quarantine prescribed by the Peace Corps for all evacuating volunteers. In my jetlagged haze I called my friends and loved ones back in Armenia. I called my best friends from my cohort. I listened to Armenian music. And I tried my best to keep myself occupied and to reach out to new people and new opportunities. But try as I might that awkward discomfort still hasn’t left me.
It’s been almost two months since the evacuation. I have a temporary freelance job. I’m applying to graduate school and internships and fellowships. But my mind is still in the highlands. I still think about my time in my village, working with my beloved students. I feel loss when I see pictures of those green hills and think about all the experiences I am missing out on. I wonder when I can (or rather IF I can ever) go back.
The hardest part of growing up is learning to let go. Someone once told me that for a plant to stay healthy it needs to have space for its roots to spread. Once a plant gets too big for its pot it must be uprooted and re-planted into a bigger pot to give it room to grow. Uprooting the plant isn’t easy. It requires cutting and separating some of the roots but its necessary for the overall health of the plant. Similarly, us evacuees are being uprooted and I’m hoping with all I’ve got that even though it is so damn painful to rip our roots and to loosen our soil, our foundation, that in time we will flourish in our new, bigger lives.
To my fellow evacuees, stay strong! This is a crazy unprecedented time in our nation’s history and we are doing the best we can. It’s OKAY not to know what you are doing. This is a time to re-connect with people in America and to focus on ourselves. This has been the hardest lesson I have taken away from the pandemic — to just let go.
Let go of expectations, from yourself and others. Let go of the ego. Let go of shame. It’s easier said than done but it’s so important for us to take care of ourselves and to be able to heal from this trauma.
In the weeks and months that follow I wish you all to Լավ մնաց եք (Lav mnats ek) or “Stay well” in Armenian.
*My views are my own and don’t reflect the views of the US Government or the Peace Corps.
