It's interesting how something so significant has become almost a footnote in my life. Many people have no idea I was a Peace Corps volunteer. In some ways it is my own choice- by telling people I served, I will end up revealing how short my service was, which then leads to the question of why I didn't stay. For a long time I didn't want to talk about that part of the story. Not because there was any sort of traumatic event, not because I was hurting by anything that happened there. I just didn't want to feel like a failure, and Peace Corps was the first thing I ever quit. To add to the emotional confusion I felt when talking about it, people's first reaction has always been to be impressed, to tell me how brave I was, and it was hard to follow that up with the revelation that I quit. It just all seemed too complicated to have to go into it all.
So now it is ten years later, and I am clearly not the 21 year old that I was when I boarded that plane in Miami with dreams of seeing the world and bringing hope to the third world. The good news is that I have made peace with the 22 year old who boarded the plane home that October. Was it the right decision? I suppose I'll never know for sure, because I don't know how my situation would have progressed, but I do see why I was so unhappy with my assignment and why returning home to be a teacher seemed like a great way to make a difference. I finally have stopped feeling like a failure for leaving. Instead, I would like to use my 10th anniversary to share with everyone the memories I treasure most.
1. My host families. In June I lived with the Santos family- Elvis, Amparo, and their sons Elvis and Kirsten (don't ask, I didn't name them). I loved village live in San Joaquin, where I was accepted as one of their own. My second host family, Karen and her son (whose name has escaped me) who had cerebral palsy in a country that had no supports for special needs children, so he stayed at home all day in front of the tv. I didn't care for Belize City, but I loved Karen and her son, even when I was having to eat the cuisine of that part of the country (pig tail soup anyone?). Below is a photo of me with the younger Elvis.
2. My first view of the third world. In our first week of training, we went in pairs to poor villages. I went to Billy White, a small farming village where children attended school when they were not needed on the farm or at home, and where there was only one phone line for everyone. The people were good, kind, hardworking people. Below is a photo of the family we got to know that day.
3. My favorite places. I loved Corozal, the quiet northern coastal town where the San Joaquin crew went to relax. I loved the jungles, and climbing the Mayan ruin of Lamanai where we sat and heard howler monkeys. I loved the hills of San Ignacio and the western region toward Guatemala. But nothing will ever top the day that we took a boat to Goff's Caye to celebrate the completion of training, and had an island to ourselves.
4. Hurricane Keith. Just before I was supposed to leave Belize, a hurricane hit Belize. We were stranded in Peace Corps headquarters for two days while Keith sat on top of us. We were safe, but rivers flooded and damaged some of the poorest parts of the country. The newspaper headline below refers to Orange Walk, the town that I lived in (fortunately, I did not live near the river).
My full photo album is here. There really were some great experiences, and I'm glad I went, even if the ultimate assignment wasn't what I had hoped. Now that I have finally had another chance to live abroad, with my recent trip to Mexico, I realize not only how much I have changed and matured, but how much I still want to try living abroad in a place and with a situation that fits me better. Something about Mexico felt right in a way that Belize, for all its beauty, never did. So maybe 10 years has been long enough to make me ready for my next adventure.
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