This is a (sometimes...hopefully, often updated) record of my Peace Corps experience. I have been invited to serve in the Dominican Republic as an "Appropriate Technology Developer," and leave for something called "staging" on March 2nd. That's six weeks away and, yes, at this point I've so much to do to get ready, I'd stop time if I could. And I'd stop time just to stop it. I'd gotten used to my status as "having applied." it was exciting, full of delicious possibilities...and safe. I could dream. It was all a dream. I could work (happily, something new for me) and dream. Then this big blue package of an invitation arrived and things quite suddenly got real.
A note about the name of this blog, 24 Moons: more or less, that's two years, the length of the Peace Corps commitment to which the 3 month training is added making a total of 27 months away. I feel as though I've been in the Peace Corps--as a quiet apprentice, sort of Peace Corps Lite--for nearly a year now, but that's another thing...and, besides, it's a good feeling, a fondness given that applying to Peace Corps has made me review so much of my life and added an intensity to my experience of this place and my friends and family which I will be leaving for what feels, this side, to be a long time. Remarkable, faced with the coming change, how I have forgotten just how fast the previous two years have sped by. Two years is nothing, to quote a friend upon learning of my plans. "Peace Corps is perfect [for you.] Two years is nothing," she said. Of course, easy for her to say, she's not going.
I was nominated by my recruiter for "an assignment in agriculture and forestry (?...I'm an engineer interested in energy with experience in renewables, living off-grid...BUT, as I've learned, and as you will, this is Peace Corps; expect to be surprised) somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa," and imagined, then, deserts and endless clear skies bringing with them clear nights, multitudes of stars, all the constellations many of which I haven't seen since I was in New Zealand, let's see, 32 years ago. And I'd expected to be able to see (and feel) all the full moons available during that time. Well, things have changed and I'll likely miss some of them but but there's something in the first name one hears (or makes up, in this case) that sticks in the mind. 24 Moons, it is. ...And, it was available; these days, I'm paying attention to "the signs."
To me, moonlight is about feelings. I'm not alone. It would appear this has been the case for all of man's time in Earth. It is especially about love and I love this planet. I've been around it on a bicycle and seen/felt nowhere near enough of its landscapes or its peoples. Now I get to see a little more of it. And, I have a job "out there." I alternate between being enthused and frightened by this whole prospect. Do I think I can do this? There have been brief flashes of that but mostly I have no idea. Mostly it's been something too big to get my head around. I've snuck onto this rocket ship, dressed myself up like a paid passenger and am trying to hide in the crowd. I don't know where this thing is going and nobody is saying. In fact, nobody else seems to know either. This going but not knowing where appears to be the culture into which I am insinuating myself. Elephant in the room; everybody's busy feeding it but it's the [pet] elephant in the room so nobody talks about it. And they're all such nice people I can't bring myself to point this out. We're all going for a ride.
Already, I'm a number of emotions behind. I should have started recording months ago. Emotional states, I have found, shift when doing something like joining Peace Corps. There is the contemplation of the time away and friends missed, in this case, the time away from family and my best friend, my wife, JoAnne.
A year ago I contemplated joining the Peace Corps. I'd attended a Peace Corps presentation by five returned Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs...Peace Corp tends to alphabetized-soup things) at Middlebury College (MC) in the late fall of '09 at Dana Hall (ITLFO09ADH). I sat in the near-back wary of something coming at me, though I couldn't tell what. Around me, it turns out, sat a number of other RPCVs, some teachers at the college, each with a story to tell, which they told, in bits, while the five on stage told their stories. Shortly afterward I went to a more private presentation, got a book (free...hmm) and a rather thorough brochure pretty much telling everything I was going to learn about the Peace Corps. There's so much more I wanted to learn, and still don't know, and will tell you as soon as I learn it. I want to know all the more now that I've been accepted...that is, invited to serve, along the lines of: just what have I gotten myself into...all the details, please. No details are forthcoming. Perhaps the most useful of information has come from one of the five on the stage that Saturday afternoon, David Rosenberg. David served in Nepal in the early to mid 60's. I'll paraphrase: "You may not know what your Peace Corps service was about for years after you've returned." If that doesn't sound comforting, join the club, and, yet, it was, is, it settled something in me. This is an adventure.
Now, we know that one can not set out to have an adventure, one can only put oneself in the way of one--much like setting sail in a pea-green boat (with good company) on a lovely morning for a trip across an ocean each comforted by the thought one of the others had packed the compass, the chart and the rain slickers. There's going to be an adventure, it's just that you'll be warned too late and won't have any control over events.
It's likely that anyone reading these notes will know me and know I've been living around a mental illness for much of my life, obviously to therapists, had I consulted one, since I was 22 or so, and, now, obvious to me since I was around 6 or 7. One would think I'd gotten good at handling being bi-polar but that would be underestimating the disease and overestimating me. I lived in the margins, mostly a life of survival, very much appreciating the times between depressions, which came upon me once a month. Through much hard work, much time, a perceptive therapist, many good and close friends, the discovery the roll alcohol played in the illness--an important story in itself about which I've written extensively elsewhere--I am no longer bi-polar. That's good news, but there's another side to this: I have a different brain, am a different person now than I was when the dragon breached my castle walls and had me cornered. The question is, who is that new person. In many ways the development of my self knowledge stopped when the depressions began. When one is cycling, one is a different person at any given moment through the cycle and cycles: from moment to moment a slightly different person: a noticeably different person every hour. It's hard to get to know oneself under those circumstances. The times between what we're calling "events," about three weeks for me, was a time to pick up pieces of a newly shattered life, try to figure out how they fit together, and to be so very thankful I wasn't depressed. It's not enough time to realize who one is and to find one's life-line. For example, it was impossible for me to figure out what I wanted to do for work.
Given that I have to work, one would be correct to think that I've made a number of mistakes in work choice. I have a degree in mechanical engineering, thoroughly dislike bullies (working for them, watching them do their thing, etc.,) enjoy physics, am recreationally addicted--quite useful, actually, as it keeps me fit physically and is quite helpful with the mental issues--and like to project my mind into things. I make puzzles of them and try to solve them: the collapse of the WTC towers (ask a physicist to do a conservation of momentum analysis of the collapsing floors,) enquire to what extent CO2 can warm climate (I don't know but the basic IR absorption physics of CO2 makes it seem unlikely that it can do diddly to the climate for a Very Long Time. TJ Nelson's paper, "Cold Facts on Global Warming," is a great on this...well, I think it's great, anyway.)
Emotionally and regarding self-knowledge, I am a youngster, just about the right age to go into Peace Corps. And, anyway, doing something like this, one stands at the edge of one's abilities. You know you're at that cliff and looking outward when you find little you've done prepares you for what you've thinking of doing and in this, you feel like a beginner, a youngster. There is also a sense of fear. It's something one "comes up for."
I looked over the medical check list and qualified, my former mental problem excused--major depression disqualifies but type 2, my type, does not--and began my application the first of last year. I write slowly (and I procrastinate, am lazy, am attached to my comfort zone, regard change with suspicion) and it took me until the end of March to get the referrals together and finish the essays. For me, the questions were not easy and it took a lot of writing even before I understood what was was being asked. And it took a while for me to boil what I'd written to fit within the page limit for each of the three essays. I sent everything in just before the first of April, uncomfortably close to that auspicious date.
Since applying I've considered every difficulty and surprise as my personal "Peace Corps opportunity." My car blew its transmission on my way to Cape Hatteras for a sailboarding vacation in late April. Ah, a Peace Corps Lite (PCL) experience. There is a late season snow storm blowing sideways. Ah, another PCL experience.
Both my wife and I are trying to adjust to my perspective of her reality: the rapidly approaching storm of packing, driving to the airport, departure and return to a quiet house. We have had some arguments. We both find ourselves quick to anger, then embarrassed about the sparks. My plate feels full. There's too much to do and I am also aware that, lacking a clear perspective on my future from Peace Corps, I'm probably making half of it up. I have to learn Spanish in 6 weeks. Do I really? No, they'll teach me. Yes, Ill be way behind the other volunteers. No. Yesnoyesnoyes.... What do I bring? They'll tell me. They're not telling me. FriendsoftheDR will tell me. I've e-mailed them for a mentor. No mentor's shown up. I want to take a camera. Should I take a camera? No, it's expensive. Yes, they're all expensive, that doesn't tell you anything. What about the fiddle? No, don't be silly. Yes, what the hell. How do I avoid theft? Do I make lockable boxes for everything? No, relax about that will you? Yes, get busy. And on it goes.
Then there's the things around here that are bound to need repair or maintenance while I'm gone. These are not ordinary things. We don't live an ordinary life. We live off-grid with an old Jacobs wind turbine that I maintain. Who'll do it while I'm away? I can't find a climber to take on my clients. It'll be hard to find someone to do this one. It'll just have to survive until I get back. And there are all the things JoAnne can do that I do now that she has to be taught. We were supposed to do one of these things today but cleaning the house has taken that spot. Another day. There are some left and we ought to be able to cover those bases.
