On becoming a better you

Every Peace Corps Volunteer I’ve ever met has had a different reason for joining this big and crazy family. No two reasons are ever the same. For some, it’s timing, it just felt right. For some, it’s always been a dream. But deep down, there’s always an aspect of “it was right for me” or “it will help me find myself.” Isn’t that counter-intuitive to the mission of Peace Corps – to give, give, give? Give yourself to other people? Give 27 months to serve your country? Give you heart and soul for the good of another community? It’s an uncomfortable thought that we want to do Peace Corps for ourselves, but it shouldn’t be. There is such an incredible value in serving that of course you would want and hope to gain something from it. Here’s six things you will “get” out of doing Peace Corps:

1) Your eyes will be opened.

To quote Pocahontas, “If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew.” By living fully immersed in a new culture for 27 months, you will learn how to give speeches in new languages, entertain children for hours, invent crazy remedies for any malady, go days without water, or bucket flush a toilet. You will also relearn things you thought you already knew - like how to do laundry without a machine or the dishes without water. Putting yourself far, far, far outside your comfort zone will always end in an eye-opening experience.

2) You will gain a deep understanding of a new culture that you can never replicate through any other experience.

Peace Corps is perhaps the only program that places people on the ground, living with a totally new community where NGOs don’t or won’t go in an intense field work position for 2+ years. When else will you have two years to spend in the farthest northwest reaches of the Dominican Republic and gain a second family who will protect your reputation, defend your honor and gift you countless mangos and plates of rice and beans?

3) It will give you perspective.

When you’ve watched community members struggle to put food on the table, or give away everything to help their children go to school, you will learn that the world is a far more complicated place than you ever could have imagined. You will understand how fortunate you are to be able to live and serve in your community and appreciate everything you left behind to be able to do so. At times it will feel like you don’t matter and aren’t important, but keep yourself grounded and remember that drop by drop, the river rises.

4) It will make you appreciate the small things.

You will appreciate the phone calls you can make to home, the laughter of a child, the deliciousness of a homecooked meal, the beauty in human connections, the love of a family and the endless sources of joy in the world. After serving in the Peace Corps, nothing you look at can ever again be seen through the same lenses. When you milk your first cow for fresh milk, see your first live birth, and teach a child to say please and thank you, you will understand the simple things that make life so very worth living.

5) You will find purpose.

I didn’t know in August of 2013 that I would find a mission that I believe in as strongly as I believe in delivering emergency medical services to rural communities where there is no “911.” And yet over the past two years, I have dedicated myself to training local youth in first aid and coordinating an emergency medical dispatching system with the local fire station. And now that I’ve seen this project from nothing to something, I will never think about the world in the same way before. Every day present a new challenge, but when you believe in your work and find a purpose in your site, it is the best feeling in the world.

6) You might even find “the one.”

No, I didn’t find my future spouse during my service, but I found someone who fills my heart with so much joy it hurts. I found my “one,” the one person I was put on earth to find, the one person I dread saying goodbye to, the one cannot imagine living without. I found a little girl who has shown me the richness of truly loving someone and caring about them with all your heart. Gissaury is the one that made me re-analyze my stance on wanting to have children, now understanding how powerful it is to love someone with even the fraction of the love I feel for her. Had I not done Peace Corps, I may still be the child-fearing and baby-loathing person I was before. But not anymore, because I was lucky enough to find my “one.”

Peace Corps will change your life and every step you take after serving will be laced with lessons learned, values added, and morals cultivated during your service. You can never know all the ways it will affect you, but you have to trust that it will lead you to exactly where you are meant to go.

You will also:

Learn to appreciate moments of serenity.

Learn local traditions, like how to play dominos.

Learn to dance!

Eat fish eyeballs!

Make best friends like Ronand and Anny!

Lead meetings in another language.

Graduate groups of people learning wonderful things!