“Peace,” I’m Out!

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve gone ahead and chucked away my cushy government job, will soon be selling off all my worldly possessions for pennies on the dollar, and am about walk away from an all-around stellar life here in fun/beautiful Denver, Colorado, to go live in a no-electricity/no-toilet African village and work for free. Yep, I’m getting my liberal on and joining the Peace Corps!

I applied way back in December, really just to keep my options open for later. I knew the application/clearance process could take awhile and that I wouldn’t have to make an actual decision for some time. And, to be perfectly honest, at the time I hit “submit” on the application, I would have placed the odds on me actually doing this at 3 to 1 against. But as I advanced through the process, and as I read more and more about the experiences of current and returned volunteers, I found myself getting incredibly excited. The thought of becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer and all that entails: the challenge, the cultural experience, the opportunity to be an ambassador of my country and to do such meaningful work . . . It enveloped my mind. Waiting for an invitation to a specific country was agonizing.

Finally, just last week, I got an official invitation to Uganda. I couldn’t have been happier. Besides having a rich culture and intriguing history, Uganda is packed full of mountains, lakes, and rivers. Just like my beloved home state of Montana! So that means no cultural adjustment needed for me, right?! . . . Right?

Anyways, I’m going to be working primarily with a non-profit outfit - an outfit to be determined, but likely one focused on community health - as an advisor on matters of organizational development, which includes things like management techniques, strategic planning, etc. I might also get involved in grant-writing and other fund raising. The idea is to improve the capacity of the organization’s local staff to help them help themselves now and in perpetuity. You know, the whole “catch a man a fish, feed him for one day; but teach a man to fish . . . “ thing. I can’t wait to get started. I’d take off tomorrow if I could.

All that said, leaving Denver will be difficult. Despite my excitement about Peace Corps generally and Uganda specifically, I took all the time allotted to me by Peace Corps to make my final decision. I’m fortunate to live in the best city in the country. (I really believe that.) I have terrific friends and a good job that provides me with more than enough disposable income to do all the things I love to do. And then there’s Larry. He’s not my pet; he’s my roommate, my sounding board, my friend. I feel like I’m abandoning him, which I take very seriously and which almost put the brakes on this whole thing. I’ll be forever grateful to two of my aforementioned terrific friends, Chrystal and Peter, for providing a loving home to Larry while I’m away. There are only a handful of people on the planet I’d trust to do that, so the fact that two of those people so graciously and so without hesitation offered their home. . . Well, it’s immeasurably important to me; I literally can not thank them enough. Giving up my life here will be painful in a lot of ways. I recognize fully that I may end up regretting leaving it all behind to go to Peace Corps. But in the end, I concluded that I certainly would come to regret it if I didn’t go.

So, this is my blog. I’ll do my best to keep it up to date while I’m away. I’ve never had a blog before and figured I never would, to tell you the truth. Erecting an elaborate architecture for my musings on the World Wide Web feels a little presumptuous. On the other hand, I found the blogs of currently serving Peace Corps volunteers incredibly helpful when I was trying to decide if this was the right thing for me to do, and so I thought it’d be appropriate to “pay it forward” to any random strangers who might stumble upon this page researching their own potential misadventures. Also, from what I gather, my access to the outside world via the phone, the internet, or even the internets, is likely to be both sporadic and in brief increments, so for those of you who are going to be interested in what I’m up to, this may turn out to be the most practical way for me to communicate with you (as opposed to composing and sending multiple individual emails or making several phone calls, which would be prohibitively expensive, I’m afraid).

I’m leaving on August 4th. It’s my intention to squeeze two years worth of American-style fun into the next two months. After that, I’ll be off for about three months of intensive training in-country, and will then travel to my “permanent” site, which will become my home for the subsequent two years (at least presumably). There are still plenty of unknowns: where that permanent home will be, whether I’ll be living on my own or with an Ugandan family, the particular organization with which I will work, whether or not I’ll be victorious in my daily battles with the fist-sized, malaria-infested mosquitoes, the extent to which I’ll be able to effectively manage my fantasy football team from the bushes of Africa, the effect that the sudden lack of chips-and-salsa in my diet will have on my very will to live. . .




Giddy up.

-Ryan