Peace Corps has broken itself into two separate entities: the dream and the realization. I flew out of Washington with little knowledge of what I was really getting myself into, but honestly, how could I know? Uprooting from all that is comfortable for an elusive new beginning is rarely accompanied by a legible roadmap… And so it was with Peace Corps El Salvador. A latent expectation of realizing substantial, life-altering change has been replaced with more realistic hopes of changing unhelpful behavior, redirecting negative thoughts towards communal growth and change, and developing previously-hidden relationships into lifelong bonds. The dream that hazily floated through my head in South Carolina pointedly realized itself and, unfortunately, broke me.
Few have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and begin anew, yet I have been given the chance to be the first volunteer in two different sites. The two communities are opposites in many ways, their locations certainly being one. La Palomilla, Nueva Granada, Usulután is flat, hot, dry, and dusty, and scorpions are plentiful enough to be deemed household pets. (Not once did I wash my clothes without a little guy crawling from within the safety of a pants leg). Tobias, Santa Rita, Chalatenango, on the other hand, is a rolling-hill paradise. The drive into my new community feels like a summer’s drive through Vermont. Lush, green hills rise from the water reservoir that reminds me of Lake Champlain to the looming storm clouds that blanket the higher peaks of El Pital.
However, when the formal discussions with the bosses began, I was told site-changes carry a seriously mixed bag of emotions. I heard the advice, but considering the emotional state I was in that ultimately led to a site change, it was nearly impossible to process and incorporate the thought until I closed the door of the truck and saw my host family crying goodbye in the mirror. As a family, they offered me the best of their small food supply, their kindest welcome, and a true concern for my well-being. Sadness and lose wholly overwhelmed me when I realized that, though I still live in El Salvador, I cannot communicate with the Guevaras, yet bliss, excitement, hope, and a sense of possibility pushed those feelings aside when I mentally placed myself in the moment, when I focused on my new site, when an entire community welcomed me with the same open arms that a single family had before. So it is with a mixed bag of emotions...
Certainly, I am new to the country (I will be the first to admit that I still have much to discover about myself and how that translates into being a balanced, successful volunteer), and I know that volunteers with more time under their belts may come to the conclusion that a site change is, well, ridiculous, but I think that some of the greatest things that we might gain from our two year service are friendships that cross cultural boundaries and a respect for another world that, at times, seems mind-bogglingly different. However, if this exchange does not exist, or cannot be cultivated, Peace Corps, in my mind, does not exist.
So, with regards to my own site change, I have acquired the most important resource one might have in El Salvador: respect, friendship, and trust within the community. My desire to flee, to seek a safe-haven, has simply vanished now that I live in a community that has quickly come to terms with its new neighbor. I was truly unaware how significant attitude and openness by a community could be in the success of a volunteer’s stay, but in acting on something that, at times, can be taboo for many in Peace Corps, I found exactly that for which I was searching. Though in a more realistic design, that which was broken at a very early stage has been repaired by those around me. Maybe a site change isn’t such a bad thing after all…
