I believe you have to be kind of crazy to do Peace Corps. Ugandans agree.
"Why would you come here?" they ask, confounded.
They are not the first people to ask that question. At my going away party in Dallas, I had one family friend pull me aside, and ask earnestly: "Laura, why would you want to go to Africa?" He was one of many in the time leading up to my departure.
It's one thing to think in an abstract sense that travelling is good, the mission of Peace Corps is good, meeting new people is good, blah blah blah. But to actually pack yourself up, put your life on hold, say goodbye to friends, family and air conditioning for 27 months and step on the plane…? That's another thing entirely.
You have to be a little bit crazy.
I've been asked "Why?" so many times and I always find myself at a loss for what to say.
Why am I here?
Why did I travel halfway across the world to be surrounded by strangers and live on less than $3,500 a year?
Am I here because my Dad did Peace Corps and has always talked it up as the "best years of his life" and I've just grown up with this expectation that I'd do it?
Or am I here because I know shockingly little about the world outside of America, especially the "third world", and I don't want to stay ignorant as to how millions of people live?
Or am I here because I'm scared of being "trapped" in a job, a marriage, a family before getting a chance to travel?
Or am I here because I'm proud, stubborn and I just want to see if I can do it?
Or is it just an inexplicable calling? A feeling impossible to describe and ridiculous to mention, but strong enough that I'm here and I can't leave until it's satisfied?
Each of these partially answers the question, but none, even together, capture it fully. It's an ongoing debate I have yet to answer satisfactorily even to myself. Why am I here? Why am I still here?
I think I find myself at a loss because I feel both that I have so many reasons for being here, and then no reason at all. I want to explain myself fully and, in the same breath, say honestly "I don't know".
It's an odd feeling, breaking with what so many in my graduating class are doing. To hear talk about graduate schools, new jobs, promotions, salaries, new apartments, weekends spent in big cities with other recent graduates, alumni events, long hours, demanding bosses, new families and exciting trajectories. It's odd to stop, wave goodbye, and, alone, turn to take a detour. It's odd not to be able to explain why.
When I touched down in Uganda, at our first training session, our country director told us, "Welcome to your tribe. Welcome home."
I looked around the room.
I realized I must have something in common with these strangers.
We all, for one reason or another, left everything we had to be in this room. We all came into this experience with no one. We all had been faced with innumerable why's.
My country director continued. When he had come to Peace Corps, some of his college buddies had been talking about business school and recent bonuses from new jobs. He thought to himself, "Well, my house has a fan and a toilet so…". We all laughed. It is ridiculous. Our lives are ridiculous. You have to be a little bit crazy.
He went on to explain that Peace Corps is like a poem. At its worst, it's maddening, boring, uncomfortable, frustrating, hard to understand, meaningless, long, defeating. But at its best, at its best, when you're in the right mood, in the right place, at the right time, it's magic. It's beautiful. It's visceral. It's inexplicable. It's impossible to capture or describe the beauty suddenly apparent in the world. The way your soul seems to soar to fill your heart and threaten to leave your body. The peace you feel.
And I looked around the room, at these crazy people who agreed to come to Uganda for two years without knowing a single person, and I felt, in a very strange way, that I had left a mass of people who couldn't understand why I would come here, and had met people who needed no explanation. They, like me, just came.
We came from all different backgrounds, at different times in our lives, each hoping to get something different from this experience, but from the very beginning, we could relate to each other in a way that was almost impossible to explain to our closest companions at home. Since then, over the past 7 months, that commonality has only grown. I've struggled with these people. I've shared my lows, and celebrated my highs. They live an experience I describe poorly to those at home. When I mention being called "Mundu", or squished into a taxi, or seeing chickens on a bus, or running out of running water, or being overcharged in the market, it's not a second-hand story for them. It's real. They've lived it. They can understand my time here in a way that no one at home will ever be able to.
In fact, since being here I have developed a kind of fear of returning home. I dread facing the inevitable: "How was it?". I fear it because I know I'll always be disappointed in my answer.
I'll never be able to describe my time here. I'll open my mouth, and in that instant a flash of memories will hit me: Teaching for the first time in my classroom, going through PST and drawing comics, meeting Allie and Bobby and Kristen and Emily and so many others, watching 6 hours of Game of Thrones alone in my house, meeting my Ugandan neighbors for the first time, learning a new language poorly, feeling like I could cry from frustration and scream from happiness, seeing rainstorms so big I thought my house would be swept away, walking to school in weather hot and muggy, open-air markets, rolex's, sleeping under a mosquito net… and as I try to capture these memories, I know I'll falter, and say simply: "It was great."
My inadequacy to answer "why?"will be nothing compared to my inadequacy to answer "how was it?".
I don't type this to discourage anyone at home, or make it sound as though showing interest in my time here is a futile or even off-putting endeavor. On the contrary, those who have taken time to learn about my time here have my eternal gratitude: PCV's love nothing more than retelling stories of their time abroad. Furthermore, Peace Corps is not unique in being an experience so defining it's impossible to describe. I'd argue college or a job or any number of experiences can fall into this category.
But finding people who were also willing to jump on a plane to Africa… that, to me, is unique. We certainly aren't all the same. We're not all best friends. I wouldn't even say we all get along. But we are all part of a very small minority of people who were crazy enough to leave our lives for 27 months. After being uncertain about my choice in the months and weeks leading up to my departure, after being surrounded by people I love and asked in the most well-meaning way why?, after wanting to tell them "I don't know, I don't want to leave you! But here I go", after walking through airport security on my own, it is an immense comfort to finally meet the people waiting for me on the other side. People who were a little bit crazy like me. The ones who will forever be the only people who truly understand my inarticulate, inadequate answer to "why?" and "how was it?".
This doesn't just apply to Peace Corps. Med students are crazy. Law students are crazy. People who did mock with me are crazy. Those who join the military are crazy. People with kids are crazy. Anyone who pursues an endeavor to the point that it takes over their life is crazy.
But, if you look around at the people who surround you in that endeavor, and feel that you have found your people. Your tribe. Your home. I believe you are not only among the crazy, but among the fortunate as well.
I will always say one of the best things about Peace Corps is the people I met. So to conclude my last mini-series of my first 24 hours in country, my final thought on my time thus far in Uganda was the following: I have found my people. Welcome to Uganda, Laura.
And welcome home.
"Sometimes the place you are used to is not the place you belong. You belong where you believe you belong. Where is that for you?"
- Queen of Katwe
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