Sunday, March 3, 2013

Tag!

(written 13/14 February 2013, after reading a blog entry by an incoming Peace Corps/Zambia Volunteer)
Your blog entry
Staging completed!
I’m tucked into my sheets
Foam mattress still holding up well
Glow from my paraffin lamp and a candle
And from my phone screen
I read your day’s summary
You helped the other newcomers
I was one of the first to arrive, too
It was freezing…but sunny that day.
Leaving behind my winter coat
(But you’re from Cali.  You probably don’t own one.)
Eager, bright faces.
We all had new clothes too.

One year ago—I was with that new group
Just days after they arrived.
Shiny gear.  Too much luggage.
It breaks and changes, becomes dirty,
But not as much as you’d expect.
Like I said, mattress is still holding up.

Hit me a while back.
It’s all so transitory
I don’t know half the people here.
250 Volunteers.  Ish.
50 (ish) turn over twice a year.
We’re part of something big.
It feels so personal, so monumental, this journey
I mean, we’re both writing a blog
You prepare your heart, your bags.
You leave!  You arrive!
               and yet you find others leaving.

Laura, Sajay, Chris and Nicki—met them so briefly
And Casey, gracing our PST
They were old hands.
Been here two years!  Imagine.
We couldn’t.

That’s me now.

So full of hope, energy, nerves, you 43.
You’re on a plane as I write this.
From a committee meeting in my village.
Planning HIV prevention work.

Yup.  It’s real.  This will be your job soon.

You’ll make fire.  And bicycle a lot.
Get soaked in the rain.  Try to keep your belongings from being soaked in the rain from leaks in your thatch roof.  Or eaten by termites.  You’ll probably drop your cell phone down your pit latrine (it happens so often—you’d think we’d learn.)  You’ll cry some and laugh a lot.

You’ll call little African children—maybe the same ones sponsored by other Americans through aid NGOS—your brothers and sisters.  And mean it.

You’ll be blown away by the rainbows.
By the sky.

The slushy mess outside the Philadelphia Holiday Inn—
You won’t miss it.

Two years.  Really?  Already?
You’re just arriving.

We’re trying to wrap our heads
around the fact that we’re leaving.

You found me in your preparations to come here.
I will follow you to stay connected once I go.

TAG!  You’re It!