A Year in Review
Colombia to Kyiv
I am writing this while sitting in my Arlington apartment the day after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Reflecting on this year isn’t so much surreal as it is absurd. The details of recounting such a tale sound almost like fantasy— a story that would be left on the cutting room floor for being too far-fetched. Yet here we are.
To understand this year in context, I need to retrace my steps back to September 2019. I was spending a final week in the coastal capital of Barranquilla, wrapping up my Peace Corps service in Colombia. I recall my friend Maya and I making bellinis in a local supermarket, attempting to loosen our nerves before ‘ringing the bell,’ signifying the end of our ambitious — albeit quixotic — adventure abroad. I was sporting a shirt my Colombian friend had made me with large letters that read Qué Pena on the front, words reflective of a meaning lost in translation that had provided ample laughs for me and my cohort over the previous two years. On ringing the bell, volunteers often make a short speech. I remember getting surprisingly emotional, fighting back tears as I offered respect to my fellow PCVs for clawing their way through the hardships of service despite occasional disputes over work style or worldview. Next: excitement. Beyond lusting for the the amenities of home, our thoughts swelled with ‘what now?’ scenarios, attempting to imagine what exciting new doors our post-corps life would bring. New careers, different cities, educational opportunities — they were all distant possibilities we had assumed would happen eventually. Now they were on the horizon.
My situation was a bit unique in that I had a little more clarity. I was on the precipice of a dream — the Foreign Service. I had first started working to join the ranks of our nation’s diplomats in 2016. I can’t recall a shred of uncertainty about the profession: I heard of it, and I pursued it with everything I had. On the first practice test, I received a 7 percent chance of passing the job knowledge portion of the initial exam — the FSOT. Unperturbed, I spent endless hours studying — reviewing thick stacks of flashcards attempting to catalogue the whole of U.S. history and government. In Colombia I participated in virtual simulations of the final assessment with other FSO hopefuls over a weak internet connection from my rural Caribbean pueblo. I remember reluctantly turning my powerful electric fan away from me so it wouldn’t send my study materials flying across the room. I filled out invasive security documents with my host family, because apparently Peace-Corps-required housing is considered having ‘foreign cohabitants.’ I even flew to Bogota to do a security interview at the embassy, an onerous requirement that I’m still bitter about. I had done — I felt — so much, yet it still seemed that I was going to come up short. I was so sure that I arranged to work in Puerto Rico doing disaster relief. I felt the added time would allow me to sharpen my Spanish skills enough to give me the final push to employment. Then, it happened. At a layover in Miami (my checked bags already waiting in San Juan), I found out that my life was going to change. I had been accepted. The feeling was insurmountable, a relief of pressure that had been building for years. The unadulterated joy made the awkward encounter of cancelling my obligations immediately upon arriving to San Juan feel numb. I had made it, I didn’t know what to feel.
What followed was a whirlwind of forced maturity. All of a sudden I had a career, a concept that I would have scoffed at during certain points of my life. The State Department sent a packing company to ‘help me move’ to Virginia from my presumed residence in Massachusetts. In reality, the event consisted of a confused mover looking curiously at the small pile of personal belongings that I had kept from Peace Corps piled on the floor of my dad’s Plymouth home. Many people were moving mountains, while my most expensive item was a blender. Arriving to Virginia was surreal in itself. I had grown accustomed to cohabitating with my Colombian host family. Before that, I didn’t earn enough to really furnish my apartment. I had slept on a futon for most of my adult (and much of my adolescent) life. I vividly recall entering my furnished apartment. I ran and belly flopped onto my bed. The idea of having a completed residence that was mine — some would say an American right of passage — felt so foreign. It felt good.
I started my FSO orientation — colloquially referred to as A-100. I had gone from the frank, unfiltered, and often shameless camaraderie of my Peace Corps bubble to the carefully composed presentation of bureaucracy, each member of my class clad in suits or dresses. Our class quickly learned about the notorious “corridor reputation” of the State Department, a sense that your image within the service is paramount to your success. Despite a desire to discount it as exaggerated lore, the thought remained at the forefront of my mind throughout training. I still vacillate between wanting to maintain a solid reputation and not wanting to lose too much of myself in over-zealous professionalism. A-100 was exhausting, but each member of the 201 (A State Odyssey) made it through and swore in as newly anointed FSOs. On the day during which we received our first tour placements — Flag Day — I received Kyiv. I spent the day waving a small blue and yellow flag, emblematic of Ukraine’s sky and wheat. My mom and some friends from Peace Corps were in attendance. So was my grandfather, who since high school has put more faith in me than I have in myself. It felt incredibly rich to show him the consequences of such immense effort and the conclusion of such constant and looming anxieties.
The next part you all know — covid. On one hand, covid hit us all. It is naive to think, however, that we all suffered equally. As someone who can often have a cynical outlook of the world, I count myself lucky to have been where I was when I was as the pandemic struck humanity. Miraculously, I was a member of the final Peace Corps Colombia cohort to finish my service before global evacuation. Similarly, I was a member of the last A-100 course before they were entirely moved online. Even amongst my colleagues I was fortunate. My enrollment in Ukrainian language class meant that I would not be significantly delayed to my first post in Kyiv. Many colleagues — unable to travel to post — faced months of uncertainty and were forced to patch together training schedules and spotty work assignments to fill their time. I, conversely, would study as I had been originally directed; I would just do so in sweatpants. Moreover, I would do so alone and unplagued by the technological challenges faced by large classes of language students. My studies were not without their challenges, however. Long hours spent alone in class followed by longer hours living alone in my apartment — my former archetype of American maturity — started to wear on me. Spending my birthday alone in quarantine didn’t help. I am still navigating the challenges of extreme isolation.
Finally comes the presidential election. As a federal employee, especially as an FSO, my political activities are somewhat restricted by The Hatch Act. More confusing still is the flexibility of such restrictions while working domestically as opposed to abroad, especially as they relate to publishing information online. I think I can say “non-partisanly,” though, that the election has been momentous, and — despite being ostensibly concluded — remains shrouded in some uncertainty. How the next few months play out will be very consequential for many, and I count myself among them.
The incrementalism of this past year of life has almost allowed it to seem normal. Even writing it above seems too smooth, like it doesn't capture the jagged interjections of internal and external life. It’s hard to recenter myself in the mindset of 2019 — thinking that my two year stint of different was coming to an end and that I would be returning to my version of cultural normalcy. Returning to Massachusetts, I recall the biggest headline being a statewide ban on vape pens. Who could have predicted that the most dangerous use of such devices would shortly become sharing them for risk of transmitting a deadly and largely misunderstood disease. Since then I’ve spent a year in transition — meeting new colleagues, learning a new language, and training for a new job. If all goes as planned, in a month I will be moving to a new country, to do a job I’ve never done, under the purview of a new administration, in the middle of a pandemic. Circumstances are dark right now. They are uncertain. But one thing that the past year has taught me is that circumstances quickly change.
