I'm finishing up my last couple weeks here in Azerbaijan. It is brought upon by different mile markers, last day at school, saying good-bye to friends and family, last trip to Baku, etc. I thought I would post here my very last article for my high school newspaper. I've been writing for them every month since my first January here.
Waffles with peanut butter and syrup, lemon meringue pie, coffee, burritos, avocados, and ham and green beans. Sounds like a varied assortment at a bad buffet, but really they are the answers to the question, “What did you first eat when you got back to America?” While not the case across every Peace Corps country, in Azerbaijan, we complete a staggered leaving process. Even though we come in as a sixty person group together, we leave slowly (fifteen people per week) over the course of a month. I’ve been getting updates regularly from my friends who have successfully made it back to the States already. We all have the same questions for each other: “How many showers have you taken? “What was the first thing you ate when you got back? Have you been to Target, yet?”
While food and daily routines will soon become the norm, a lot of us are frightened for the reverse culture shock that will inevitably hit us. From overwhelming selections of pickles and laundry detergent at a supermarket to the horror and guilt of showering in drinking water, we all have anxieties about returning.
It seems that we prepare a lot for entering a foreign culture, but often take for granted the difficulty of returning to our own. After two years in the Peace Corps, what’s next? How do I talk about this amazing, challenging, fulfilling, complicated, intriguing experience? What benefits, skills, or lessons have I learned?
Thankfully, Peace Corps provides a lot of support to its volunteers coming back to America. There are Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) groups which one can join to find people in their own community, use the support services, and become connected to the job and career list serves. Also as RPCV’s, we receive one year of non-competitive eligibility when applying for federal jobs. There is a separate fellowship program solely for RPCV’s receiving their master’s degrees and an endless amount of other scholarships and aid given to those who have volunteered for the past two years. Also, during our service, we were required to learn at least the basics of the language of the community in which we lived, and almost all of us learned far above and beyond that.
But above all, we have these great memories, photos, and friends. Leaving Peace Corps is really just a formality. We end up being volunteers for life, championing for our communities, getting together with former group mates, and forever feeling a special camaraderie with the other former, present, and future Peace Corps Volunteers in the world.
I am nervous to come back to America. A lot f what I have read says it can take up to a year or more to readjust from coming back from overseas. I am glad I will have some time with my family over the holidays to try and learn to make small talk again. I hope I do not have a panic attack trying to buy cheese at the store. But these past two years have been a completely unforgettable experience. And while I know it will not be always be easy trying to get back into the swing of things, I do know that it was absolutely worth it.
