Choices, choices, choices

My generation has more choices than ever before. 30 is the new 20. I'm not expected to buy a home, get married, or have babies yet. Or ever, if that's what I want. Or I could do it all tomorrow, if that's what I want. Isn't that incredible? We are actually free to do what we want - so why do people criticize others' decisions so freely? Don't we all just want to be happy and fulfilled? And shouldn't we take advantage of these new freedoms to figure out how best to live our lives?

I've been on a Yahoo group for Peace Corps volunteers/people who are interested in the Peace Corps and many of them have complained about how their families and friends aren't excited about them joining the Peace Corps. They fall into two camps - the "why aren't you settling down?" camp and the "why would you want to live in Africa?" camp. Thank goodness that all my friends are either a. doing something crazier or b. able to understand why I'd want to go.

Something else I've noticed on the group is that people who are joining the Peace Corps seem unnecessarily derogatory towards their friends who made more mainstream life choices - especially women towards other women. One person wrote that she thought there had to be more to life than saving for retirement and having babies. Well, I think there is more to life. But I also think that saving for retirement is important! And I can't wait to havea bunch of children some day. And, of course, there's the marriage issue. One size does not fit all when making important life decisions. For example...

My dear friend Heidi is married and owns a home in Wisconsin. She's a real adult. Even though she needs to find a new job where they appreciate her, I know that she's happy and has made great decisions. She married a wonderful man who absolutely adores her and she feels the same way. Meanwhile, I'm paying rent and living with roommates and planning to leave the US for up to 3 years, depending on how much traveling I want to do at the end of my service.

The beautiful thing about our friendship is that I know that we are both truly proud of one another and that we both take great joy in each other's decisions and happiness. So why all the derision from the people on the Yahoo group? Why have their friends been so negative about the Peace Corps, or moving to a developing country in general? Does it arise out of insecurity about their own life decisions? Do we have too many choices and not enough guidance?

I think that women in general need to do a better job of being supportive of one another. The women who made our choices possible wanted us to be fulfilled - and we shouldn't be criticizing each other's choices, but rejoicing that we were able to make choices in the first place!

Well, I have plenty of time to figure out why this problem still occurs. In the meantime I will just count my blessings - that I have a wonderful support system of well-traveled friends who have kindly offered to send cans of tuna and People magazine and who will be waiting with martini shakers for my return!

PS - I actually really have loved the Yahoo group and have appreciated all the advice. This was just something I happened to really disagree with a bunch of members on.

Puppies and Sunshine

It appears that it is not as difficult to get kicked out of the Peace Corps as I'd hoped! Just in the last few days I've come across multiple people who were kicked out for 1. not trying to integrate culturally 2. buying school supplies for girls who weren't in their host families and 3. blogging (more specifically, what's on the blog)

I'm not worried about 1. or 2. because I intend to really try to integrate and don't imagine that I will be completely unsuccessful. And I won't buy things for people if I'm told by the PC that I can't because I really don't want to ruffle any feathers before I even get sworn in as a Volunteer, although I can completely see where someone would want to give gifts to people in their communities. But the PC has to try and keep it "fair." Whatever that means, given that there are 1.1 billion people living on under $1/day and many of them are in Africa and specifically Guinea.

But 3 might be tricky, since I can't imagine I'm going to want to write the same damn thing over and over in my letters. It would be much easier just to send one letter home and have my lovely mother update the blog. That way I can make my letters more personal, since I won't have to describe what I'm doing again.

I know that living conditions in Guinea are tough and being in the Peace Corps is tough and teaching English to high schoolers will definitely be tough. I don't like the idea of keeping those problems out of the blog, but I'd rather keep the bad out of the blog and not get sent home! That would not be hot at all.

Anyway, I'm going to do some more research about this. I want to be as culturally sensitive as possible without sacrificing my accounts of some of the problems that I will inevitably encounter. We'll have to see - I have been told that Guinea is so remote and has so little internet access that this probably won't be an issue...it appears to be more of an issue in countries where the nationals have regular internet access and where there have been problems in the past.

I definitely want to keep up the blog while I'm gone, so that my family and friends, as well as potential Peace Corps volunteers, can see what I'm doing. But I will be very cautious about what I'm writing, because I will be working for the US government at the invitation of the Guinean government and I would never want to write anything that jeopardized my relationship with Peace Corps or my soon-to-be Guinean friends!

So if the blog ends up being all Puppies and Sunshine, don't despair. I promise that I won't change that much! But if you want to hear the gossip on Peace Corps parties, internal PC politics, or about whether Guinea really is a dating desert, you may have to wait for snail mail.

Heartwarming

One of the great things about leaving for the Peace Corps is that your friends and family get to tell you how much they love you and will miss you and you get to return the sentiment. I've also had the chance to take stock of the people in my life and am able to really appreciate how fortunate I've been to have such wonderful friends from childhood through college and now that I'm in New York.

Anyway, I received an unexpectedly heartwarming email yesterday, from a manager at Chacos, Inc. I know that my family and friends are happy for me and are proud of me, but I wasn't expecting such a nice email from a Chacos manager! They provide their sandals at 50% off for all Peace Corps volunteers...here is what he wrote...

"Thanks very much for your order. I've entered it on our sale number PRUS 549 and it will ship by April 20th. Thanks even more for your service as a PCV. You and your colleagues are our heroes! Best of luck in Guinea and let us know if we can be of any further assistance."

Isn't that so sweet? What nice folks there at Chacos.

Heroes is definitely overstating it, but I'll accept his appreciation anyway!

You know you hate your job when...

• You count down your time in New York in business days.
• You wear dress pants with flip-flops and don't even think about changing your shoes.
• You don't even bring your make-up to work, much less put it on before leaving the apartment.
• You wear the same 4 black cardigans every week.
• You continue to wear a pair of dress pants that are totally frayed at the bottoms. Frayed jeans are okay, but frayed dress pants? Ew.

I figured out that, assuming I manage to get into graduate school once I'm done with the Peace Corps, the soonest I could possibly have a desk job would be May 2011. Isn't that amazing? So why am I having such a hard time sucking it up and just doing my job? Is it because the end is so close?

29.5 business days left!

UNC Reunion 2006

This past weekend was deliciously scandalous and fun. I went back to UNC for a weekend of laughter, drinking, dancing and late-night food. The very good looking group is pictured above.

Ways in which my friends and I have matured:

1. We stayed at the Carolina Inn, the nicest hotel in the area.
2. We all have paying jobs. Some are even home-owners and some have actual careers, rather than just jobs.

Ways in which we have not matured:

1. We might have stayed at the Carolina Inn, but we slept 7 to a room.
2. We may have paying jobs, but we still spend a considerable amount of money on alcohol.
3. We were still the craziest, dirtiest people on the dance floor at Player's. We were also the craziest, dirtiest people in any bar that we decided should have a dance floor. Much of this was caught on film.
4. I still knew the DJ at Player's.


On Sunday I was lucky enough to spend time with the families I used to baby-sit for. I love that they always say how happy they are that I take time out to come and visit, like it's a chore for me. I love staying with them and watching the kids grow and can't imagine that it would ever feel like a chore! They really were a family for me during my time in Chapel Hill and I feel so fortunate that I've been able to make it back every year to see them all. I'll really miss the kids when I'm gone and I was so happy when they promised to send me letters and gifts!

So now I'm back in NYC for the home stretch. This weekend I'm having a small party for my 25th birthday and I'm looking forward to spending some quality time out with my friends. I have less than 7 weeks of work left - the time is really flying by and it's starting to feel more real that I'm leaving.

Luckily, after this weekend's trip down to UNC, I really confirmed that I've made the right decision and I'm totally excited about leaving for the Peace Corps. I'm not so excited about this...

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=4067

Leave it to me to head to a country that might be in the middle of a military take-over after 20 years of relative peace, albeit not much prosperity. Peace in Guinea must not have been easy to maintain, given the situations with their bordering neighbors Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire. I hope that the military take-over will be avoided and Peace Corps Guinea will continue without interruption, but I suppose only time will tell. I have no doubt that the Peace Corps will take care of us - most people complain that the Peace Corps is too strict on volunteers, but after my experience with i-to-i in Kenya I'm going to be grateful to have people looking out for me!