Email No. 16:
October 5, 2005
In My Last 3 Months? Where Did My Last Three Years Go?

Dear Fam,

I feel that I’ve been rather slack in writing emails this year. It’s the same old excuse of traveling everywhere and then being much too tired to write once I get home. This time around I left Mtwara around the 9th of September and actually won’t even get back there until the end of this month. When I first got to Morogoro we had a week of TOT (Training of Trainers) in preparation for this round of Pre-Service Training (my fourth and last one here in Tanzania! Crazy!). Peace Corps can be utterly disorganized at times, something that they do a good job of not letting the trainees see when they first get here, but is slowly realized soon after swearing in. This TOT was no different with the Training Director not even present until the middle of the week due to either taking vacation or family issues, I’m not sure. The Calendar of Training Events was no where near being finished either, and no one present was willing to make any decisions regarding it whatsoever with out the TD. In the end, another PCV and myself ended up taking all of the information as to what sessions needed to be present in the PST and wrote the rough draft and then final draft of the Calendar all by ourselves. Again, another great learning experience, which is how I have somehow managed to approach most of the challenges thrown my way this year. There are so many times that I really haven’t felt prepared for what I was doing this year and just ended up throwing myself into the situation. Things usually managed to come out okay and like I’ve said, I’ve learned a lot; the next time around will be much better.

Some people have asked me which year was my best in Peace Corps. My favourite, or rather the one in which I feel I accomplished the most would definitely have to be year two, where I was working in an environment that I already understood and with people with whom I had already built relationships. That being said, this past year would come in 2nd place as I’ve learned so many skills that I know will be extremely useful to me in the future. These are things that it would have been more difficult or more timely for me to have learned in another setting. I feel extremely lucky to have had this opportunity.

The new group of trainees flew in almost two weeks ago now. They are a large group, with lots of energy and a young group as well. Most are right out of college, as I also was, and the oldest is just 36. All of a sudden, at 25, I feel both extremely old and young at the same time. I feel old because my energy levels really do not match up to theirs. I know that this will even out though and while they can tire me out, they also give me energy and remind me of everything that excites me about being here. I feel young because I think that I’ve already gotten to do a heck of a lot with my life in just 25 years. There are still maybe up to three times that many years ahead and so many things to fill that time with! What an adventure they are about to undertake! Was it really three years ago already when I first stepped off that plane?

I actually paid for and obtained my ticket to go home in January (13th leaving Tanzania, February 15th landing back in the US) on the day the new PCTs flew in. That’s definitely made me feel a bit strange. It finally hit me the other day that I actually will be leaving here in January. This time, when I get on that place, I will have no return ticket in hand. People here seem to be rooting for me to come back (though it’s not in my immediate plans). The Country Director made the comment to me the other day after sitting for hours and sharing all of my adventures of the past year with her that I would make a good candidate for a APCD or Admin Officer in the Peace Corps some day. The secretary told me she had specifically put a few job descriptions of some jobs opening up with the CDC in Dar es Salaam in my last Peace Corps mailing; “ Tanzania was now my home and I couldn’t go back.” Then the other night, I had dinner with the Regional (East Africa) Training Director (not his official title, which I cannot remember just now, but the title I’ve listed somehow describes his job), who spent the entire evening trying to persuade me to get into development work abroad as a career and explaining me all of the steps I would need to take, including the type of Master’s Degree I would need to pursue in order to do so. All of this in one week! I am actually very flattered that all of these people think I would be good for this kind of work, but it was also more than a bit overwhelming. For now, I know that I still want to go home in January, go for my hike, and then take it from there. If I didn’t before, I most definitely do now feel that I’m at some kind of crossroad. It’s both a bit overwhelming and exciting all at the same time, but I do know that I need to come home. I’ve lost touch with people and the US as a whole. I feel that now it’s time to pay my dues there and give back to people through teaching as I have done over here the past three years. Besides the fact that I love teaching, and I would miss out on that, there’s a kind of mental block for me when it comes to doing that kind of work. It would be difficult for me to work that many more levels removed from the people I am supposed to be helping. That’s what has made this past year a bit difficult for me. I thrive on the interactions I have with people like my students.

I leave at the end of this week to take the last of my vacation. I’m going back down to the Southern Highlands of the country (in the Livingstone Mountains above Lake Nyasa to be more specific) to visit some other PCVs from the Pacific Northwest. Besides their site being one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in Tanzania, it is also one of the more difficult to get to and not very developed. Read: no cell phone service= no outside disturbances from Peace Corps. =0) They have a radio call and that’s it. I can’t even begin to describe how much I am looking forward to that amount of isolation so I won’t even begin to try. =0) I get a whole week and a half there!

After that it’s back to Mtwara for two weeks, another two weeks of PST here in Morogoro and roughly six weeks in Mtwara and then I’m done. I’m seriously looking forward t just being in Mtwara for that long again.

Love to you all! Jessica