The Peace Corps Effect

   When I left home for college at the tender age of eighteen I thought that it would be a defining moment of becoming an “adult,” a big girl in the big world where I would make a life and a name for myself.  Six years, five cities, three continents, and what seems like every single time zone later, I still call the Superparents when I am in need of guidance and wisdom.  To survive this Cambodian adventure though, sometimes it’s a little easier to vent about being hungry and the inability to eat any more rice to another PCV. 

 I will do my best to explain.

  Thrown together in a mishmash, a literal “melting pot” (seriously, it’s that hot here), Peace Corps Volunteers form instant friendships overnight that meld and carry us through the dips and ruts of living alone surrounded by people of a different culture.  We instantly have a connection, a bond, a similarity that sets us apart from the rest of our friends: the simple fact that we are PCVs.  In our little microcosm, it’s the other PCVs who we call when we’re down, when we need to be picked up, and sometimes when we need to just speak English.  I have some of the most supportive, amazing friends back home who will listen to me when I am Skyping, email me in response to crazy ideas, send kickass care packages, and answer unknown numbers when I call from Cambodia – but even though I consider myself lucky in the support I have from America, the only people who can truly understand what this experience does to a person, is another PCCambodia Volunteer (hence my introduction to my PCV friends in Cambodia – see previous blog post).  Hayley’s friendliness, Caitie’s energy, and Amber’s loyalty are the best medicine I have yet located to bring my own positive attitude back to where it belongs when I forget for a moment who I am or when I get carried away by The Peace Corps Effect.

  Maybe it’s because we have to create our own world for two years, clutch each other for comfort and understanding, and whittle away hours talking about what we like about our villages, what we miss about home, where we want to go when we are finished with our missions, or maybe it’s because we are so far from home and our established support systems that emotions, the good ones and the bad ones, are magnified here.  This is what I call “The Peace Corps Effect.”  Everything that happens to us is slightly exaggerated and every PCV has a moment when they become a mini drama queen.  Peace Corps Volunteers experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, sometimes in the same day. Example: the night that I walked down the road to my village in the rain on the way back from my dentist appointment, humorous as though I looked even to myself, I was not happy with my situation.  My immediate reactions were, “typical,” “this sucks,” and “freaking rain,” and when my host mom appeared on my bike with her friend along on a moto with a light, I saw a white knight in shining armor on a fierce stallion rescuing me from…what? Rain? I’m not made of sugar after all (sweet as I may be) and in my own culture, walking home in the rain is no big deal.  But here, where I only catch every other word in my village and faces tend to blend together, a simple walk home was a journey, a battle, an event that was slightly exaggerated in my mind and as part of my experience.  As fantastical as my imagination is by itself, The Peace Corps Effect still throws it for a loop.

  The Peace Corps Effect is a roller coaster of exaggerated experiences and magnified emotions that cement our friendships because of the whirlwind that happens inside of our heads and hearts and the support we seek from each other when that happens.  Our friends are the ones who help us stay not only positive, but productive when we are living in our dirt road villages surrounded by people with whom communication is difficult at best.  The Peace Corps Effect is the reason that we form instant friendships that last for two years (and probably beyond).  It's the reason we all become each other’s warriors and feel hurt so acutely when something goes wrong.  I think that any PCV who has been in-country for a few months will agree with me when I say that though Cambodia moves slowly, The Peace Corps Effect means that our relationships with other PCVs and Americans moves so much faster.  We feed off of each other’s emotions and energies.  That’s why it’s so important (I think) for PCVs to guard their attitudes because one of the facts of life that transcends culture (trust me on this one) is that misery loves company.  BUT one of the worst kept secrets of life is that happiness loves company too, and it takes a balancing act for a good friend to know when to indulge in sadness, and when to help stave it off and help to protect a positive attitude. 

   I have heard that Peace Corps is one of the most difficult jobs to have – I think that is true on a mental level.  I myself am inexorably rational, logical to the point of frustration and when I feel myself going Godzilla-emotional I literally think that I am going to have a mental breakdown (see what I mean about everything being exaggerated?).  Since this directly conflicts with my own self-image of being cute and likeable not to mention calm in the face of a storm, it’s not the easiest thing to deal with.  It’s hard trying to control out-of-whack emotions and turn everything into a positive light day-in and day-out, even when I am a glass-is-full kind of girl (it’s half full of water and half full of air…see, I’m good at math too).  By having a job such as this, representing all Americans in my village, I am not allowed to be publicly sad or angry.  If they see me not smiling, the people of my village always always ask me if I am unhappy, if I miss America, if I want to go home.  They take my actions for the actions of everyone back home.  They see my emotions and in their minds, apply them to the emotions of everyone back home.   I represent my family, my friends, my countrymen and women, and all who have come before and will come after me.  I am a celebrity with none of the perks.  And like celebrities, I have to keep my crazy emotions in check when I am at my site with my host family.  Forget being American, I can’t even be a girl with emotions if I want to.  Trying to figure out a way to not only fix my overwhelming ‘Peace Corps-ed’ emotions when I feel myself going a little crazy but keep them under wraps in front of my Khmer friends and family in a culture where privacy is a privilege is enough to drive a girl insane (there goes the exaggeration again).  

  But sometimes I think that The Peace Corps Effect could be a good thing.  Why? Why would magnified emotions and exaggerations be good in any sort of capacity?  This is why: because they are a part of life and a part of who we are as Americans and as humans.  In American culture people are allowed to be emotional in a way that people of Khmer culture are not.  Regardless of how cultural norms allow us to act, we do have emotions and learning to control them in front of ourselves and other people is an important lesson to learn.  In addition, it is a crucial part of (at least) Peace Corps life to be able to talk to other Volunteers and learn who you can lean on when something goes wrong.  Hey, we're a social species. We need each other.

  After the craze and travel during the holidays and then birthday celebrations, I hit a funk somewhere around the middle of February while surrounded by the simplicity of site.  I was recently talking to another PCV about how February was difficult for me and I was sad a lot during that month.  He found it hard to relate.  “What if you get sad again?” he asked me, maybe guarding his own positive attitude, and at the time I didn’t know how to respond.  It only took me about a minute after I hung up the phone to become indignant.  I’m a human, I’m not a robot.  Though I generally consider myself to be a very happy person, I have been sad before and I am going to get sad again.  Not only will I get happy and sad, I’ll be angry and jealous, cheerful and generous.  I might even go a little crazy and be shocked.  Having emotions and growing by learning how to deal with those emotions isn’t just a part of Peace Corps, it’s a part of life.  I refuse to be ashamed for feeling strongly about situations that life throws at me or the people that I find myself with.  I am not going to be afraid to put myself out there because, after all, isn’t bouncing back from difficulty the true test of maturity?  I have been told before that more important than any actions taken first are reactions to unforeseen circumstances and sticky situations that one may be put in.  Yes, I get sad.  Sometimes I even cry a little when I am sad.  And then when it’s over, I pick myself up and move on and before I know what has happened, I find that I am happy again.  And you know what? It feels good to know that I’m alive and have emotions.  It feels even better to talk to one of my friends and let them help me when I need it, because I know that I will be on the other end of the phone when they hit a funk too.

Isn’t it true that when it rains, it pours?  So be it.  I am learning how to dance in the rain. 

xo-Amanda