Where my heart leads me: Finishing My Peace Corps Service

To be completely honest, finishing my Peace Corps service was very bittersweet. It’s nice to be at a point where I can say that I have completed two years (almost 27 months) of service in Ethiopia. And I will not lie when I say that Ethiopia is one of the most challenging and hard Peace Corps posts. Feel free to ask around if you don’t believe me.

I am relieved to be done with the constant staring that I got from people with in my community and all of the harassment that I received throughout my whole service (and yet I mention again that this was just in my community through my WHOLE service). I get that I stand out and look extremely different than majority of people that live in the town I lived in… but still, you’d think that people would get used enough to seeing you around that they could at least be polite enough not to stare 24/7 and call me by name rather than trying to get my name by yelling “foreigner” and/or throwing rocks (and trust me when they should have known my name by the third of fourth month that I was living there). Among the challenges of living within my community included not having constant electricity and water (although I was lucky and had much more of that then most volunteers in Ethiopia have), and (I hope obvious) limited network and Internet access. Also, transportation could be an issue at times. It occasionally can be difficult to catch a bus (this was a particular issue during my last week in my town and I will get more into that in a moment). When you are able to get onto a bus (which has no more than 12-15 seats for passengers), the driver will try to stuff the bus as much as he possibly can so that he will end up making as much money as he possibly can (this will turn out to be 20-40 passengers depending on the size of the bus and how much extra space that can be made). I have had to take bus rides that in addition to the bag on my lap, I practically have had another person sitting on me. Extremely irritating, but something you have to deal with if you want to get anywhere while traveling through Ethiopia using public transportation.

So… with all that being said, my service did end on a bit of a frustrating note (and you could say that poor transportation was the last straw in ending my service when it did). When I began my service, I actually was not able to move to my town right away because there were riots and protests happening throughout this particular region of Ethiopia that I was supposed to be moving to. After staying in the capital for an extra week or two, things calmed down and I was able to move to my town. Last December, riots and protests began again due to similar reasons. All of the volunteers in the region were brought to Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) for a period of time. The volunteers in my particular area were kept in Addis Ababa for a whole month. Due to certain reasons, the other volunteer living in my town and I were allowed to go back. But the other two volunteers close to us did not go back to their towns. My town was “okay” for about two months. But the other volunteer (direct teaching in one of the schools) was unable to do any work because students refused to go to school. The last week we were in our town, there was transportation at all (this was a country wide issue because drivers were protesting). At this point in time, I was supposed to have a month left of service. Due to safety concerns and the potential of not being able to leave my town if something came up, I was given three days to pack up all of my things and say my goodbyes. When something like that is sprung on you so suddenly, it can be extremely irritating. So, as some people already know, I (was not really even given the choice in the matter) left a whole month earlier than I was supposed to.

Okay…. Enough of my rants… if you have any specific questions and/or would like me to go any more detail (which I can) about anything above, please feel free to ask and we can talk about it. I think that I have talked enough about the bitter parts of my service and how it ended. On to the “sweet” parts of my service. And don’t worry, there’s plenty of good that came out of my service.

To start, I was able to learn a new language, immerse myself in a new culture, and eat new foods (that was surprisingly not that bad most of the time; but I’m not a hugely picky eater to begin with…). Despite the challenges that come with having to adapt to a new (and vastly different) culture, I’ll admit that it might have been good for me. The greatest challenge with this different culture is how slow everything is in comparison to the culture of the U.S. It’s hard when you get used to the slow pace of one culture and then come back to the fast pace culture of the states. But on another hand, it has been good for me because I am much better in adapting to change. I hope that this will be something that will help me throughout the rest of my life.

Somehow, I also lost a ton of weight during my two years of service (and when I say a ton, I really do mean a lot). Keep in mind that this wasn’t the case for everyone. There were others who lost a bunch of weight too, but there are just as many who either maintain their weight or put on a few pounds. It really was all about changes in diet in daily activity. For me, I think it was a lot of less processed foods in my diet and a lot more walking (in comparison to driving everywhere). So this weight loss was one positive of my service. Now that I’m back in the states, I’m gonna have to find ways to maintain this new weight (even trying to shed a few more lbs). I know that I got to keep doing what I was doing to some extent, but that also looks a lot different here in the states because life takes on such a different form here.

I do have to acknowledge the positives that I have taken away in regards to the work aspect of my life in Ethiopia. First, I have gained so much work experience during the two years I spent there. I gained a lot of experience teaching about various health related topics and doing health prevention programs. I even got a little experience teaching English. Despite how different work ethic, etc. is different in Ethiopia, there is a lot that I did learn that will help with future work that I will do later on in my life…. Whatever that may be.

I think that one of the greatest things that I have taken out of my service are the friends that I have made and the positive impact they have had on me. I am lucky in the sense that some of my best and greatest friends have come into my life during the past two years. Each of these people are extremely different (from each other and from me) and wouldn’t initially have been people that I would have expected to be friends with. But having the experience that we had brought us together. Despite our differences and how often some of us would get irritated with each other, we helped each other get through the two years of service. I consider them family now and family doesn’t always get along, right? And I think that our differences as people allowed each of us to learn, grow as people, and hopefully become at least a little bit better. I know that they have helped me grow a lot as a person and have helped me become a better version of myself. So to those of you who I consider part of my (Peace Corps) family (and you know who you are), thank you for allowing me to consider you part of my family and for helping me become who I am today. I really do appreciate you all and am extremely grateful to you!

So with all of that being said, these past two years have been full of ups and downs and lots of challenges. In some ways, I really did hate the experience. But in other ways, I am grateful for it. I’m not one to rant and go on and on about all the negatives… so I’ll just leave it at saying that there were a lot more than I had expected there to be. If you really want to hear more and have me go into more detail about it, we can sit down and discuss it. To be honest, what got me through the past two years were my friends who were there with me for the whole experience. And that is partly why I am so grateful for them.

There is one question that came to mind that I have been asked multiple times by locals in Ethiopia as well as people who have heard about my experience. The question is this: Will you go (come) back to Ethiopia? To be honest, there are many times when my initial thought is no. But it really just depends. If I go back, it will probably be ten years from now. And if I go back, it will be because I want to see the changes (if any at all) that have happened since I was last there. There were moments in which I really disliked (I almost want to use the word hate, but have tried to avoid using it as much as possible) the experience, but there were those good moments. Of course there were good moments, otherwise I wouldn’t have stayed. But I think that is why I am in no rush to get back to Ethiopia. I have experienced everything that Ethiopia can offer me and there is nothing in that country that I left behind. There are so many other places in this world to experience and I want to be able to experience as much as I can.

And with all of that, I will be done. I know that there is a lot more that I could say, but I have said enough for most who will read this post. If you want to hear more, please ask. I am more than happy to share. I want to end on a positive note and reiterate that the best things that came from the past two years of my life are the friends that I have gained and the ways in which I have changed and have become a better version of myself. For these reasons, I will never regret serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. But I have gained all that I can from my experience in Ethiopia and am happy to say that I have finished that experience and am able to move on to whatever life has in store for me next.