That's right. I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Over the next two years, I'll be working with rural indigenous communities on access to clean water and sanitation systems. I'll also have some secondary projects related to composting, health and nutrition, and whatever else the community shows interest in.
The blur of activities that was training has winded down. I will no longer be posting pictures of travels to different regions and different training opportunities. Instead, I'll be examining both the community that I'll be calling home for the next two years as well as myself. We'll kick off this transition in the blog with a brief window into the whirlwind going on upstairs.
Even after ten full weeks, I haven't fully processed what the next two years will mean. I know this because I feel emotionally drained. Traveling today has been hard for myself and the other volunteers heading out to the same side of the country. It's finally here. It's finally real. And two years is a long time. There are lives back at home. Loved ones. Friends. Family. The culture back home is ours. It's easy and inviting. Instead, we're traveling by bus, by boat, by dug out canoe, to our respective sites. We're going to places we don't know, places we don't understand, unsure if we're even going to "help" or what that even means.
This is what I signed up for. I signed up to help. I signed up for the adventure. I signed up for the growth that comes from future struggles. I hope I get those things from this experience. But even those thoughts are academic in nature. I'm sure what I'll really walk away with is something I have yet to comprehend, something that I won't understand until I'm closing out my service. And so I plan to throw myself into this strange new place and we shall see what we shall see.
