Well, I was thinking about taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times to share this news...but I suppose I'm not quite that important. Anyways, the big news is, I resigned from my Peace Corps training in Botswana and am back in Indy. I made my final decision this past Monday morning and arrived back here yesterday afternoon.
A few points/explanations:
-I feel blessed to have been able to spend about a month in Botswana, which is really a lovely country in so many ways. Beautiful green hills in the south, tall palm trees in the north, and a “winter” that is temperate and sunny....not to mention some of the most gorgeous sunsets and sunrises you'll ever see.
I was sad to leave my Bots 10 group- already loved my fellow trainees so much that I can only imagine how great friends we would have been after the whole term of service, 26 months. I also would like to mention the awesome Batswana (demonym of the people of Botswana) and their general welcoming attitude to us foreigners.
-I still believe strongly in Peace Corps- in the mission, the methodology, and the people. There are few substitutes or like experiences to leaving behind everything in your old life to go integrate into a new community where just about everything is different, and join certain aspects of 3rd world living. I made this decision to come home after much thought, for many reasons. First of all, as much as I still believe in the 3 goals of PC (1. Provide trained volunteers to interested countries 2. Promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served 3. Promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people) I came to decide that the PC experience in Bots was not something that would make me happy long-term. Life in Bots (and probably in many other PC experiences as well) is generally much more slow-paced and runs on 'Africa time'. Time and time again, current volunteers told us that we had to 'adjust our standards of productivity' in the organizations we would be working with. For someone like myself who is rather impatient, there is only so much you can fight against or mitigate certain aspects of your disposition. Also, for a long time I had pictured myself doing PC in a Spanish-speaking country and had received my original nomination for Central/South America. Today, 39% of PCVs serve in Africa, so it's a bit of a numbers game. I did have certain issues with the efficiency of overall PC operations, but these were annoyances rather than a factor in my decision to resign. I'm glad I accepted the invitation, and I'm glad I went. I don't have many regrets in my life, and I don't anticipate this becoming one of them.
So, perhaps surprisingly, I don't feel negative about everything that has happened. I'm a big believer in taking things from every experience, and that things happen for a reason. I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's a little intimidating to come back and have to job-search. Still, I feel lucky to have had the support of friends and family on the long journey from the beginning of the application process to the decision to return.
Besides, I'm now vaccinated for a bevy of strange tropical diseases that have long-since been eradicated or rare in the US. Come and get me, typhoid fever.
So here's to combis, to bumpy dirt roads, to the on-going fight against HIV/AIDS in Botswana, to the diamonds not running out (doubtful), to the current volunteers, trainees, and PC staff, to sometimes living without toilets or running water (only in certain households), to crazy African spiders, to a society obsessed with greetings, to Generations (South African soap opera) to getting in trouble with your neighbors for not scrubbing your clothes the right way, to hellish bus rides from Maun to Gabs, to my host family, to getting woken up by dog barks and rooster crows....
Tsamaya Sentle and Bots 10 hope to see some of you in South Africa for NYE 2012.
-Bruhn
No comments:
Post a Comment