This picture says it all!
I’m back home. My mom and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for walk (6 feet apart). I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take this photo of us (notice the social distancing and masks).
This isn’t the way I wanted to come back home or the way I wanted to leave Rwanda, but here we are. It’s not the way I had imagined my arrival. In my mind, I would’ve been embraced by my parents at the airport, sharing a car ride full of two years worth of happy chatter on our way back home. Instead, I arrived to an empty airport with a text from my parents instructing me to take an Uber to an Airbnb. The cold weather didn’t help with the warm welcome.
Tough, but bibaho, it happens.
So now that I’m back, what’s next?
This is a great question. All of the volunteers who are back are forced to confront the reality that we came home much sooner than expected without anything planned. We left our lives back in our country of service – our homes, jobs, etc.
A lot of people have been asking if I plan on going back. Though reinstatement is possible, and has been done before, nobody knows the timeline. It could be anywhere between 2-6 months before going back and that’s a long time to wait for the possibility of it happening. Peace Corps is in uncharted territory – all programs are suspended. It took so much time and emotional energy preparing to leave and even more when we were being evacuated, I don’t know if I want or could do it again.
I had an amazing time doing the Peace Corps in Rwanda, and I’ll always remember it fondly. I learned an incredible amount about the culture, food, people, language and so much more. As I sit here reflecting on my past 6 months, one moment stands out from the very beginning.
In our first week of training, Jody Olsen, the Peace Corps Director came to Rwanda and told us what she gained from her service. She said by doing the Peace Corps, she gave herself away in order to find herself again. That’s exactly how I feel, I gave myself away and found myself again (cheesy, I know). I’m leaving with more clarity and direction than when I started, which exactly what I had hoped to gain from this. I feel ready to tackle the “real world” and I don’t know if I was six months ago.
It’s unfortunate that my service ended abruptly, prematurely, and unexpectedly, but I’m at peace with it. I left in a better place than where I started. As always, thank you for tagging along. Being able to write about and share my experiences with you has been an absolute joy.
Murabeho, good bye.
Rwandering around with Joanna 