After our Swear-In Ceremony in March 2012, the ceremony that officially pronounced all fifty of us to be Peace Corps Volunteers, we were given a few days before we had to arrive to our new homes and new lives. We had no idea, really, what was in store for us – the love that awaited us, the birthdays and the hugs, the frustration and the failed projects, the little successes and personal connections that would carry us forward – but we were excited about the prospect of the future and what we could make of ourselves. So the day after our Swear-In Ceremony, we went to the beach to celebrate the completion of training and the big step we had just made. As I sat on the sea wall that evening with the girl who would become my best friend, drinking box wine and watching the setting sun light up the water before us, we thought about how lucky we were to be there. What a life we were living! We were taking on all the things that had held others back for one reason or other, and our whole lives stretched before us in the sparkling ocean and the glowing horizon. We felt young and alive. People had told us before we left that they had always wanted to do Peace Corps, but we were there, doing it! And now, two years later, we have done it! We made it through the hardest times of our lives and had experienced the best. Despite the hair-pulling frustration, the sporadic loneliness and the inexplicable illnesses, being a volunteer also means seeing the world in a new way, living life with a new purpose. How are we supposed to return to a normal life after having lived such an extraordinary one?
In answer to this question, many volunteers just don’t leave. After the completion of two years, volunteers have the choice to stay up to two years more, working on specific projects within their community or in established volunteer positions working with volunteers at a country-wide level. A friend who has stayed an extra year told me she stayed because she had learned a lot about herself and developed as a professional in her two years, and was ready to leave neither the country nor the opportunities that volunteers encounter. I remember her comments resonated with me. I wanted to stay too! Not just because I love having fresh tropical fruit and vegetables in my backyard, and not just because I will greatly miss the people in my community and the slow pace of life, but because I want to see where living and working as a volunteer can take me, personally and professionally. Extending might be delaying the inevitable readjustment to a life I have come to only vaguely remember, but in the right position, it could also be a résumé builder and a confidence booster.
Of course, in my case, extending comes with some complications. I have already asked my patient and supportive boyfriend to wait two years while I run around in the campo eating mangos and swinging a machete for two years, is it really fair of me to ask him to wait one more? Two years is a long time to leave someone you love to go solo, how would I handle a third year? And of course, all my friends who arrived in my group would be leaving, how would my volunteer experience be without them? So I decided that, despite my desire to remain a volunteer and my anxiety about having no plans in the U.S., in March I would return as scheduled to whatever life I would make for myself there.
A week before Thanksgiving, I went to the Peace Corps office on business and my supervisors encouraged me to apply and consider staying for a third year in the new Training Coordinator position. If I took it, I would work closely with the office staff during the training that all Environmental Conservation volunteers go through upon their arrival in the country, providing my recent volunteer experience to help improve the training experience. I would live in the training community to provide on-site coordination and preparation for the training sessions, including maintaining an organic garden, working with the school, and establishing positive relationships within the community. And I would still be a volunteer, working on projects and activities that the community wanted to work on. I would have to move from my current community to another part of the country, but I would still be a Peace Corps Volunteer living in Panama and working in a more official capacity. To me it was the best of both worlds!
I wanted this job, but I had already set my mind on leaving and was quite divided on what to do. My boyfriend, patient and supportive as he is, encouraged me to take advantage of the opportunity, as did my family. If I stayed another year as the Training Coordinator, they said, I would develop new skill sets and have a solid three years in my first job. I applied, but two weeks went by and I arrived to the COS Conference undecided. It was there – when I discovered that seven of my friends were extending as well, when I talked to my supervisors and other staff, when I thought about how good of a match this job was for me – that I finally made the decision I knew I would make all along. So as others looked forward to their next big step, I relished the fact that this life I’m living still feels as amazing as it did on that sea wall 18 months ago.
