4 March: ETing, Independence

                I’m going to condense 7 pages of writing from my notebook into a few sentences. If you want to know more details, email me and I’ll tell you more about what happened. Long story short, after a series of snafus, Lea, Kristin, and I decided to Early Terminate (ET) our service, meaning that we are no longer affiliated with Peace Corps. Lea is still in the US, just having been medically cleared, so he isn’t coming back except for a vacation he planned a long time ago with his mom to Cape Town and to his village. Kristin is going home to the US after visiting her PC friend in Malawi. I have decided that even though I’m not with Peace Corps anymore, I’m going to do what’s called Field Termination and not go back to the US. I will continue to volunteer independently in the same capacity that I have since I arrived a year and a half ago. My principal is supporting me in this decision. I felt that I could not just abandon all the commitments I had made to my community: being there for all my students as the only teacher who students actually like (they’ve said this to my face) and inspiring and motivating them, specifically for my form C girls to teach them assertiveness and self-defense skills; continuing to go see the kids at the orphanage to play with them and help teach them English; love and be loved by my host siblings and my ‘me; watch my dog continue to grow and be my buddy; and more. I’ve also made commitments to my fellow PCVs to help write a Lesotho travel guide and to help make a pamphlet for alternatives to corporal punishment to be distributed to many schools. In short, I just can’t leave what I’ve made as my home and pick up and leave so many things hanging. So I’ll just do it on my own terms now, although without the financial/medical/security support of the PC. But I’ve carefully worked out the logistics, and I’ll be perfectly fine. Jill says this might very well be a blessing in disguise, and I do think so because PC’s policies no longer line up with my goals and with what I hope to accomplish in my time left here.