Time
A month ago, in celebration of the 50th year of the Peace Corps, I attended an event on campus that focused on the concept of "Time," and what time means to Volunteers.
Time does mean something different for Peace Corps Volunteers in service. It is quiet--fixing up your home, reading a book that you never had time to read at home, drinking endless cups of tea or coffee with local family members and friends... It is reflective--journaling, or thinking about life back home, talking with other Volunteers, sharing lesson plans... It is anything but the 9 to 5, rush rush rush, pick up the dry cleaning, go to the gym, get the groceries, or the walk the dog pace of life back home.
I miss that Peace Corps Time.
At the event, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers brought in objects or photos that personified what Time meant to them during their service. It was a great event and a wonderful way to remember my own service and the Time I spent (and how it was spent).
Fast forward to this past weekend. I was visiting a "Peace Corps buddy" (or what we like call one another: PMFer) and we got into a spirited discussion about how many times I visited her at her site. I was adamant that I went twice, citing very specific examples of each visit. She believed it was only once. I'll check my books, I said, but knowing that they were over 2,200 miles away in Arizona, I thought this blog would be more readily available, believing that I probably mentioned both visits here.
When we got back to her apartment, I searched in vain. There was no mention of the winter visit that I remember so clearly and that I needed to prove.
This blog is a collection of my Time in Peace Corps. The things I thought interesting or purposeful to share with those of you who bothered to read. An attempted reflection of the exciting, the interesting, the out-of-the-ordinary, along with the mundane, the day-to-day, and the boring events that took place.
What strikes me as strange now, looking back over the collective body of posts, is how many things are absent. How protective I was of myself, of other volunteers, of my feelings, my reactions, and what was important to me. In attempting to look up this visit to Melitopol, I realized how little of myself is represented in this Time. How incomplete a picture this represents. How little there is of the person who was my biggest supporter, best friend, and who was always in my thoughts and who got no sanitized version of life in Ukraine. The person who is now absent from my life, for quite possibly forever. I regret that perhaps the most--that maybe in some way, my refusal to write openly about this relationship was somehow indicative of how afraid I might have been to love.
Who knows.
I can't rewrite Time. But I can learn from it.
Time does mean something different for Peace Corps Volunteers in service. It is quiet--fixing up your home, reading a book that you never had time to read at home, drinking endless cups of tea or coffee with local family members and friends... It is reflective--journaling, or thinking about life back home, talking with other Volunteers, sharing lesson plans... It is anything but the 9 to 5, rush rush rush, pick up the dry cleaning, go to the gym, get the groceries, or the walk the dog pace of life back home.
I miss that Peace Corps Time.
At the event, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers brought in objects or photos that personified what Time meant to them during their service. It was a great event and a wonderful way to remember my own service and the Time I spent (and how it was spent).
Fast forward to this past weekend. I was visiting a "Peace Corps buddy" (or what we like call one another: PMFer) and we got into a spirited discussion about how many times I visited her at her site. I was adamant that I went twice, citing very specific examples of each visit. She believed it was only once. I'll check my books, I said, but knowing that they were over 2,200 miles away in Arizona, I thought this blog would be more readily available, believing that I probably mentioned both visits here.
When we got back to her apartment, I searched in vain. There was no mention of the winter visit that I remember so clearly and that I needed to prove.
This blog is a collection of my Time in Peace Corps. The things I thought interesting or purposeful to share with those of you who bothered to read. An attempted reflection of the exciting, the interesting, the out-of-the-ordinary, along with the mundane, the day-to-day, and the boring events that took place.
What strikes me as strange now, looking back over the collective body of posts, is how many things are absent. How protective I was of myself, of other volunteers, of my feelings, my reactions, and what was important to me. In attempting to look up this visit to Melitopol, I realized how little of myself is represented in this Time. How incomplete a picture this represents. How little there is of the person who was my biggest supporter, best friend, and who was always in my thoughts and who got no sanitized version of life in Ukraine. The person who is now absent from my life, for quite possibly forever. I regret that perhaps the most--that maybe in some way, my refusal to write openly about this relationship was somehow indicative of how afraid I might have been to love.
Who knows.
I can't rewrite Time. But I can learn from it.
posted by Molly | 7:14 AM
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