How Peace Corps is like a coat
Posted By Sika on September 2, 2009
I think one of the problems some people have when returning from Peace Corps is a response to the loss of what Peace Corps means for one’s identity. For one thing, Peace Corps goes to great lengths to enculturate us–my mom even asked me, when we were kept incommunicado with the outside world during training, if I was sure I hadn’t joined a cult.
But there’s also the reaction of people back home. People are “proud” of us (something that seems strange when the proud people have only the most tenuous connection). They’re “impressed” or, even worse (to me), “awed”. They say they couldn’t do what we’re doing–as if doing Peace Corps requires some specific, intrinsically morally superior gene rather than just a desire born out of any number of good or bad reasons.
Over time, we get used to this. What once might have been uncomfortable (I, for one, don’t know how to deal with compliments period, much less compliments I’m unsure are justified) becomes uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time. We get used to everything we do being automatically important and interesting. We get used to being impressive and awesome (although definitely in a non-scary way) without actually having to do anything to earn the accolades.* We get used to being worthy of attention. We get used to being able to be “exotic” and interesting when we want to be, but still being able to be “normal” when that seems better. Our specialness becomes a fancy coat** we can throw on when the occasion calls for it, and leave in the closet when it doesn’t. But we always know it’s there.
And then service ends. And we can talk about that awesomest piece in our wardrobes–the piece we used to have, that pulled everything together and always made us look perfect. We can even show pictures of how perfect we looked in the coat, and bore people with our insistence on talking about that coat “I had that one time.” But everyone has their own version of the coat that was perfect, and having had one once is nowhere near the same level of cool as parading around the actual coat, looking perfect. It’s barely worth a mention.
I think some of us who come back to our countries of service aren’t doing so out of love of the country (although we may also love the country) or a desire to be in the country. I think sometimes we’re just searching for that perfect coat, the one that makes everything we do impressive and everything we are important, just because we’re wearing it.
*Don’t get me wrong, many of us do things that are impressive, it’s just that the actual doing of things is not necessary to the impressiveness.
**you knew I’d get there eventually, didn’t you?
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