Since announcing my Peace Corps decision, I’ve been asked most frequently two questions. The first question is always “Moldo-what?” That is often followed up with “Why Peace Corps” (or something to that effect, like “What the heck are you doing girl?!”).
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t think about Peace Corps. In college, I called the campus recruiter’s office when PC first started programs in Russia. I was told they wanted people with master’s degrees in teaching ESL and folks with extensive business experience as volunteers for Russia, so I hung up discouraged (since I didn’t meet either of those criteria at the time). I never let go of the idea, though. After I got married and started working full-time, I figured I’d do Peace Corps when I retired.
My first days in Moldova will be exactly one year from the week I decided to apply. Labor Day Week 2003 I drove to Philadelphia, NYC and back to Columbus, visiting friends. It was a long trip, a lot of driving, with no escape from myself and my thoughts. I went over and over in my head why I had been feeling so antsy, so dissatisfied. Everything was great – good job, beautiful house, great family and friends nearby, enough income to keep me comfortable and allow a big trip once or twice a year, starting to date again after being divorced almost 3 years. So why wasn’t I happy?
My mind kept returning to Peace Corps. It was the only thing that felt right – there’s just no other way to describe it. Of course, I fought it over for another month or so. Trying to convince myself of all the reasons why it wouldn’t work. Finally, I had to admit, it’s what I want to do, it’s what I’m supposed to do. Why wait another 30 years until I’m retired?
And slowly the pieces fell into place. I talked to my parents first. They were wonderfully supportive, albeit nervous about me being gone for so long. I told a few close friends, who were also wonderfully supportive.
I started filling out the application in October, I think, and here I am a year later. It’s been a long process, and there were many times when I thought it was impossible, times when I was ready to back out and say forget it. But all along, even when I didn’t know exactly how, I knew that somehow it would work out. My house sold; friends and family took my cats and my “stuff.” I kept meeting Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV’s), friends of friends were RPCVs from Moldova; there were all these strange and serendipitous connections. Over and over this past year, in my moments of greatest insecurity to the times I’ve been so busy I’ve almost forgotten I’m leaving, something has happened that re-confirms for me that this is absolutely the right thing for me to do right now.
As I wrote in one of my application essays, serving in the Peace Corps is a wonderful convergence of my values, skills and interests. It is the most appropriate, no the only appropriate, “next step” in my life.
Anka in Kyiv 