(For some context, in Peace Corps Uganda, roughly every 6 months of your 2 year service, a new cohort enters the country. This demarcates your cohort's place in country as either the freshman, sophomores, juniors, or seniors. Furthermore, the Ugandan school year is divided into 3 terms. So, in my 2 years, I will be at my school for 6 terms. This means, for an education volunteer like me, you can mark your service both by term and by what "year" you are in relative to the other cohorts in country.)
When I was a senior in college, one of my professors began her first lecture with the following:
"As a freshman, you have no idea what you're doing, but you don't know that you don't know what you're doing.
As a sophomore, you have no idea what you're doing, but at least you know that you don't know what you're doing.
As a junior, you know what you're doing, but you don't yet know that you know what you're doing.
As a senior, you know what you're doing, and you know that you know what you're doing."
I write this as a senior in Peace Corps. I've been in service for 22 months now. I have less than 4 months left in Uganda. Looking back on everything, this is what I would like to say. It's not completely coherent, or articulate, or enough, but I don't think my thoughts on Peace Corps service ever will be. So here it goes:
Year 1, Term 1, a Freshman
I finished training and began on a high. I was excited to start, excited to meet my community, my teachers, my pupils. I ticked tangible checkpoints: greeting in the local language, maneuvering around the market and town, stepping foot into a Ugandan classroom. In the first of six terms -- intervals which came to mark my service -- I learned my teachers' names and began to experiment with ways of dealing with harassment. I navigated the trying Ugandan public transportation system. I learned how to cook my (only two) staples: pancakes and spaghetti. As a "freshman", my first three months at site, I had Peace Corps figured out. This was fun! An adventure! I was in Africa (whoaaaaaaaa). How hard could this be?
Year 1, Terms 2 & 3, a Sophomore
In my second and third terms, I began to falter. Teaching was hard. Having absolutely no teaching experience and no idea what I was doing was hard. Waking up every day to brave a classroom of hundreds of pupils who were so used to being caned that any non-corporal form of discipline was ineffectual was hard. Not speaking my pupils' language and not having any experience with their education system was hard. Every day was a new, uncomfortable challenge, but one with a defined end-goal: become comfortable teaching Ugandan pupils. I didn't exactly enjoy service, and I questioned constantly if I would make it another year and a half of this routine, but I was willing to put my head down and work through it. All I had to do was exist for 27 months, I could do that...
Right?
Some in my cohort decided that they could not, and we began averaging 1 ET (early termination) a month. All told, we lost about 11 of our original 34-person cohort. Their reasons for leaving varied, but the outcome was the same: they left.
The rest of us soldiered on, some in highs, some in lows. Life for me had begun to take on a routine and ceased to be so extraordinary. I wasn't living the romanticized "simple, rural" life I had imagined. I still hung out mostly with other Americans at American restaurants. I never really learned or became comfortable with the local language. I spent a lot of time watching TV (like… a lot of time watching TV…). I came up with a schedule of cooking/leftovers 4 nights a week and eating out/leftovers 3 times a week. I infrequently played with the idea of working out. I discovered my favorite plumber, tailor, electrician, and my allies at school (which, fortunately, is pretty much every teacher). Trips to run errands went from being unpredictable adventures to… well… trips to run errands. I still don't have any kids named after me. I fell in love with my house. Life wasn't glorified, but it was good. It had become normal.
By the end of the third term (and my first year), I had kind of figured it out. While Ugandan classrooms never became comfortable, they ceased to be unmanageable. I, for all intents and purposes, had succeeded in learning how to teach here. I could do it. I had proven to myself that I could do it. I ended the year on a high.
Our MST (Mid-service training) marked the end of 1 year in service. Those who were left came together and we talked informally about our 1 year of service. It was very different from our IST (In-service training), which had occurred after just 3 months of service. 9 months later, the extreme bravado which overshadowed our insecurities had given way to a humility that belied a hard-earned confidence. We could appreciate each other's successes without secretly worrying that maybe we should have led a pen pal program or a Fourth of July cook-out or four HIV/AIDS soccer camps… We were becoming juniors and it was beginning to show. My high continued.
We were asked at MST who was confident they were going to stay until the end of service; all but two of us raised our hands. I was surprised. In my high, I couldn't imagine coming this far and then not finishing. We only had a year left, how hard could that be?
Year 2, Term 4, a Junior
The answer: very hard. My fourth of six terms, the first term in my second year, and my few months as a "junior", I plunged into my deepest slump of service. Several projects I'd been working on fell through, and I couldn't stomach the idea of teaching for another 3 terms. Furthermore, I couldn't think of another project that sparked my interest. My 2,000-pupil school, with 300+ fourth graders and as many fifth, sixth, and seventh graders, felt too big for any of the ideas that crossed my mind. I languished at home and got sucked into technology to distract myself from my lethargy. I felt guilty constantly. I felt like I wasn't doing anything (and, truthfully, I wasn't). I was drifting, directionless. I felt even worse for being a 2nd year volunteer and feeling that I should have it "all figured out" by now. I felt like I had plateaued. My language skills were abysmal, my relationships with Ugandans barely scratched the surface. Small events in town, bouts of harassment or minute inconveniences would stress me out to the point that I tried to avoid town and interaction with strangers all together. I wrote blog posts like "The Teacher Who Didn't Teach: A Memoir" and "Premature Enlightenment", both describing the immense weight that is a lack of purpose. I began to feel oddly claustrophobic; I just needed to leave Uganda. I had a bizarre fear that after service I would end up like the survivors of the (original) Planet of the Apes: I would go back to America only to have it be a continuation of my time in Uganda. I was weirdly convinced that this month-long slump in Uganda would never end.
With my law school acceptance secured, I thought about ET-ing more seriously. In desperation, I called my boyfriend and spontaneously planned a trip to Cape Town -- the most "American" city we could afford. In a matter of days, we had booked plane tickets.
Year 2, Term 5, a Senior
Just before Cape Town, in the fifth of six terms, senior year began. It came not with a bang, but a whimper. Somehow, slowly, quietly, secretly... everything fell into place.
South Africa was on the horizon. Planning the trip gave me the purpose I needed to get back on my feet. I landed on a project that could carry me through the end of service and about which I was very passionate: bringing 20 computers to my school (shameless plug: you can learn more about helping us here). I emerged from my valley and flew into the clouds -- literally. I touched down in South Africa in wonder at the lights, the paved roads, the lack of rubbish all over the streets. I sat in a coffee shop with my boyfriend and was delighted to be offered a latte and deli meats. I marveled that I could understand what almost everyone around me was saying. Above all, I was immensely relieved that my irrational "Planet of the Apes" fear was unfounded. It was ultimately assuaged when I confirmed that McDonald's still existed.
But, after a few days, my boyfriend and I were sitting together at a cute breakfast cafe, and the normalcy of it was what jarred me. Three, maybe four days in Cape Town, looking at him in jeans and a sweater, drinking coffee and enjoying an omelette in an air-conditioned restaurant… It just fell on me that I was getting a glimpse of the future. This was the rest of my life. This would be my reality for decades. The trips to the open-air market, the boda drivers and tuk tuks, the dust, the goats and rubbish on the side of the road. Being the only white person in an entire town, being ignorant to every conversation surrounding me, being in Africa… it was all going to end in a flash, and that would be it. It would be over.
Permanently.
I was even more unnerved that, after just a few days in the comfort of Cape Town, the memories of Uganda had already begun to seem distant and unreal. Did I really live there? In less than a week, my house, my school, my teachers, my town… they were already blurring into foggy, dream-like moments.
What would decades of being gone mean?
I touched down again in senior year. In an almost ironic twist, Uganda became as awe-inspiring to me as it had been those first three months in country. But this time, I was wiser and I was fearless. I tried to soak everything in, and my frustration now was that I couldn't take it with me, not really. The experience of being here was in being here. No number of photos or videos will bring it back quite as sharply. These final moments... these are what I have left.
In a matter of weeks that will last me until the end of my service, I came to truly appreciate my Peace Corps service. And now, as I've begun to cherish every moment of my time here; as trips to the market and town and the kitenge stalls and Kampala and Arua and music festivals and friends' houses have become treasured opportunities; as every day has become the uncanny mix of amazing and ordinary I had always hoped it would be -- it's all coming to an end.
It's all coming to an end.
"The man's been in here fifty years... Fifty years! This is all he knows. In here, he's an important man. He's an educated man. Outside, he's nothin'! Just a used up con with arthritis in both hands…
Believe what you want. These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. After long enough, you get so you depend on 'em. That's 'institutionalized.'"
- The Shawshank Redemption
Peace Corps service is funny. Living in Uganda, in Africa, is funny. I wouldn't say you hate it (ok, maybe occasionally you hate it), but more, you struggle with it. You struggle with missing home. With doubting whether or not you can do it. With a million little things I won't rehash here.
Then, you get used to it. Life takes on a routine. You find your rhythm. Life settles into a normal. You find happiness and friends, you deal with setbacks and pitfalls, you rely on a new support system. You discover pieces of yourself you didn't know you had, you find some of those pieces in friends you never would have met anywhere else, and only after leaving everyone you knew behind. After the initial high wears off, you think you're just surviving without realizing that you're doing it. That that is it.
Then, sooner than you think, it gets to the moment you've been waiting for, dreaming of, anticipating for the past two years: your time to leave... and a panic sets in. You realize that Peace Corps, that your country of service, has become a bubble you've slowly come to rely on. Here, you're an important person. You're the mzungu. Everywhere you go, you're noticed. And you, of all people, have conquered living here. Not just on a week-long mission trip, but for years, you have lived here. This is your home. Your normal. Your place.
Back home, you're just a Peace Corps volunteer who lived in Africa. That's cool, but what does it even mean? You're an astronaut coming back from some place as relatable as Mars. My Dad, an RPCV, told me you get about "15 seconds" before people's eyes start to glaze over and they look for an exit from the word-vomit that is an RPCV talking about their service.
Being out of place in a foreign country is one thing, being out of place in your own backyard is an entirely different undertaking. What used to make me lonely here, not connecting with my neighbors, doesn't bother me now. I expect to not totally connect with Ugandans. We come from very different places, from very different backgrounds, and we do the best we can.
I fear not connecting with Americans will make me much lonelier.
I've become institutionalized. I fear going "home" to a place which no longer understands me, and which I no longer understand (and that's without even going into the political turmoil that has transformed America in the two years I've been gone.)
I fear going home, deeply missing my Peace Corps friends, my host community, my old routine and house and life, and being asked questions that seem to drive home just how far away Uganda is.
"Is it nice to finally be able to drink a beer again?"
"People don't have teeth in Africa, right?"
"Is it nice to enjoy sitting on a couch again?"
"How dangerous was it there?"*
*Actual questions asked by actual Americans to actual PCVs
In Uganda, I have gotten used to Americans who have lived in Uganda. They've seen what I've seen, experienced what I've experienced. When I talk to them, I know my words won't get taken out of context or be the end-all-be-all of their perception of Africa. I've found the only people, probably in my entire life, who will truly understand what these past 27 months have been like. What they've meant. And now… I'm about to leave those few people, possibly forever.
I've been institutionalized, and I fear leaving this bubble .
I fear knowing that when I come home and people picture my experience, they will see what I saw before I lived it. Only I and a handful of others will know how wrong that picture is. I fear having to come up with anecdotes that are an artful mix of entertaining, concise, and, ideally, educational without being preachy. I fear that I will not be able to come up with any, and I fear feeling like I am failing to help bring Ugandans and Americans closer.
Feeling lonely in my home is something I never gave much thought to before I left for Peace Corps, but now it buzzes around me me as I stare at the 4 short months that stand between me and an 8,500 mile plane ride both toward, and away from, home.
I fear that when I want to marvel at the overwhelming number of choices at Target or deeply appreciate the luxury of driving in my own car, I will do so at the risk of reinforcing all of the negative stereotypes about Africa to those I want to understand Uganda the most. I fear that, out of a duty and respect for the country that has welcomed me for two years, I will often have to grapple with the overwhelming, bittersweet culture shock in silence.
I've become institutionalized. The distance and borders that separate Uganda from America used to overwhelm me, and now I realize that I've come to be comforted by them. I think it's very possible that people come to developing countries and stay simply because the thought of going home permanently is, strangely, even more overwhelming than the thought of leaving it in the first place.
We recently received new volunteers in my area, and watching them begin their service has been all the more poignant knowing I am ending mine. I watch them grapple with being overcharged, a lack of running water, navigating town, and uncomfortable interactions. I watch them overcome these challenges and see the highs from those victories and the lows at missing the familiarity of home. How strange it is, to be at the end of this journey, and realize that the unknown has become familiar, and that the familiar has become a new unknown.
Summing up everything I want to say, putting my Peace Corps experience into words, is trying to bottle the soaring feeling that swoops down unexpectedly, triggered by the smallest, most mundane of moments, and overwhelms your soul, filling you until it eeks out as tears or a thousand-watt smile. It's trying to harness overwhelming wonder and pride and love, and constrain these tidal waves of emotion to two-dimensional pen and paper. It is absolutely impossible.
I just have to say, if you haven't tried it, I cannot recommend any experience more highly. It will push you relentlessly in every direction, stretch and distort you until you don't recognize yourself, and drop you back down somehow loving every single second you had the fortune to spend struggling through it. It has been, without exaggeration, the most wonderful, indescribable 27 months of my life.
"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in."
"Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday."
- American Beauty
Uganda, it's been the best of times. It's been the worst of times. And damn,
I'm going to miss you.
