As many of you know by now – my partner in crime, my mind-reader, my life mate Katie, just finished her Peace Corps Response service. She signed up for the first four months of this project as a type of sabbatical from her real job and life in Baltimore and ya está, it’s over just like that! If I tried to write what she has come to mean to me, you’d probably give up reading at page 94. Yes, she’s that awesome. But instead of gushing about her superhuman skills, I’ll let her write this post to digest and debrief her own experience instead. It’s a wonderful tribute to the powers of Peace Corps. Enjoy!
When I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras, I used to make a lot of origami boxes. I mean, a LOT of origami boxes. In the old days of Peace Corps ("the old days in Peace Corps" being a club of which I now realize I am a part), volunteers used to get a Newsweek magazine every month, just so we wouldn't totally lose touch with what was happening outside of our Peace Corps towns and countries (I actually have a friend who learned that George W. Bush was the president six months after being elected by receiving a Newsweek via airmail dropped at her site in Vanuatu). After reading the Newsweeks, I would remove the cover and pin it on what became known as my "Newsweek wall", and then use the rest of the magazine to make origami boxes. Some people might tell you that I occasionally used it for toilet paper and that the reason for this was not because toilet paper was hard to come by, but because I was too lazy to walk to the store and buy it, and those people would be right on both accounts.
It all started because the Peace Corps office in Honduras had this book called It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No...It Is a Piece of Paper Intricately Folded Over and Over Again To Make a Shape: Origami! I really took the book because I never wanted to stop reading the title, but it ended up teaching me to do exactly what the cover promised. The origami box is kind of a complicated little design at first, but once you get the hang of it and get into the rhythm, you can make tons of them...which I did. I had several strings of Christmas lights and a box put on each bulb. They strung pretty much every wall and there were still plenty left over taking up a couple of corners in my house. It was a fun hobby and very relaxing - I would make boxes while listening to a podcast I had downloaded or watching one of the several DVDs I had for the hundredth time.
I haven't made an origami box since living in Honduras. In fact, I tried to teach someone how to do it a few years ago and could not remember the folds. Since then, every year around Christmas, I've tried to remember how to make these boxes that serve as great tree ornaments and I inevitably mess up some part. It just doesn't work! I know I could have looked up how to do it on the internet, but it felt wrong...like admitting that I forgot how to tie my shoes or something.
As you can imagine, making origami boxes isn't usually what I talk about when people ask me about Peace Corps. I went into Peace Corps Honduras with an idea of what I hoped to get out of the experience. I knew that I ultimately wanted to work with the Latino community back in the states (read: Baltimore) and hoped to gain pertinent experience working with a Central American population. I was hoping to use and improve upon my Spanish, and was looking forward to learning how to live with less (more "off the grid" I guess). I definitely accomplished all of those things. I still work with the Latino community in Baltimore (many Hondurans among them) and my time was incredibly informative and continues to be helpful nearly ten years later. I improved my Spanish, especially when it came to environmental vocabulary and anything involving how to prevent, treat, or complain about Dengue fever. I know how much bleach you can add to water so that it stays in the "safe zone", meaning that it is “safe enough” and tastes just not enough like a swimming pool to drink. Those things don't even touch on the many Hondurans and fellow Peace Corps Volunteers that I will forever consider my family. And all of that is wonderful. However, what I really learned in Peace Corps, my biggest takeaways, are the hardest (if not downright impossible) ideas to articulate.
A fellow RPCV once told me that Peace Corps was one of those very few times in life where your job (your purpose really) is to just be fully present. It is, for many, the only time in our lives where we are afforded this opportunity. This past October, almost ten years to the day that I landed in Honduras, I signed up for that crazy ride all over again and boarded a plane that would take me to Panama to begin a three-month service as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer. I signed up for Peace Corps Response Panama thinking that it would be really great to take several months during Baltimore's winter (when things at my job in the park are slower anyway) to gain more experience in the health care field, brush up on my Spanish, and get to know yet another Central American community.
Our first month in Panama was fast-paced and exciting. We traveled by boat to some of the most beautiful, yet some of the most under resourced places I've ever been to deliver medical care to indigenous Ngabe communities. It was challenging, adventurous, fun, and, at times, stressful. I'd say that I accomplished all of those things I had originally thought I wanted to accomplish in coming to Panama. I maybe spoke more English than I thought I would, but when you live with a stranger (read: Bronwen) who converts to your best friend who then converts to the voice inside your head (see a future blog post addressing Peace Corps Life Mate Separation Depression), you generally speak more English than you thought (even though we tried to speak only in Spanish on Tuesdays and Thursdays).
After the clinic season ended and the staff had gone home for the holidays, Bronwen and I found our Tiny House, made it our own, and developed a little more of a routine. Things slowed down a bit. People on Isla Colon would call it “Bocas Time” or maybe “Island Time.” I have called it “Honduran Time” or “Hora Hondureña” and my parents or sister (while waiting for me to meet them so that we can all drive to my aunt's house together for Thanksgiving) would call it “Peace Corps Time.”
Bronwen: Looks good so far, but can you wrap it up? It's getting long.
Me: Oh, yeah. I know, I'm rambling. I wrote the first part in Panama and now you’re making me write the second part in Baltimore.
Bronwen: Yeah, I feel like I can tell. Also, don't be afraid to be funny. Ya know?
Me:...
Bronwen: I mean the first part is kind of funny and then I think it's just nostalgic...ya know...
Me:...
Bronwen: You know what I-
Me: I'M SAD, OKAY?! I MISS YOU! It's hard writing a comedy piece in February from Baltimore when it is 14 degrees out!
Bronwen: Woah. Okay, enough with the histrionics.
Me: If I have to have one more conversation with a stranger about why I look so tan, I am going to lose it!
Bronwen: Hey, it's alright. Whatever you write is fine, okay?
Me: Yeah, thanks.
Bronwen: Ok, so yeah. Just wrap it up and make it a little funnier, though. Ya know?
One evening, Bronwen was making dinner (I like to think I would have, but she had more of a vision for it and I don't actually know how to make peanut curry even though I offer to sometimes, but she is just quicker in getting the sand off of her to get into the house after our routine evening beach walk, so naturally, she was just ready to make dinner before I was and I, obviously, would do the dishes...) and I was sitting at our kitchen/sewing/work/everything table when I felt a familiar urge...it was like my hands wanted to do something. I went to the bookshelf and picked up a Scientific American I had brought with me. I ripped out a page. I grabbed the scissors (oh right! it has to be a square. Why all of these years did I not remember that it has to be a square?), and watched my hands start to fold. The one fold goes across, and then this one goes opposite (right! Its opposite), then you fold again and tuck and tuck and fold and tuck and then there is that hole in the top and blow and...voilá....an origami box!
Coming back to Baltimore after several months away, people have been asking me how Panama was and if it met my expectations. The truth is, I don't really know how to answer them. Just like the first time, I don't think I really could have imagined what I would take away from the experience and I am still just processing the whole thing. I guess we Returned Peace Corps Volunteers seem to do that our whole lives, always figuring out where our experiences abroad fit into our new lives. All I know is that I needed it, I'm so glad that I did it, and I will most likely need it again. I think Peace Corps and experiences like it, in the end, are about being present. And I think, if I can remember how, I am going to try and make more origami boxes in Baltimore.
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