If you've come here to help me, you are wasting your time

“If you’ve come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

            -Lilla Watson

            The Peace Corps and its volunteers work to meet the basic needs of the poorest people in countries around the world. Oftentimes however, Volunteers report that the effect their service had on them far outweighs the impact they had on their communities. Peace Corps acknowledges this and preaches to us that over the next 27 months, we will change and grow as human beings in ways we cannot being to imagine. While I cannot say who I’ll be after service, I can reflect on some of my feelings so far:

            1) From the local Peace Corps staff, to the staff at our orientation site, and especially our host families and other South Africans living in our training village, every single person I’ve met has welcomed me gratefully to their country. They have opened their hearts and homes to complete strangers and accepted us immediately as members of their families. It is a great feeling to come home at night knowing your host mom is eager to sit down and hear what new phrases you’ve learned in Sepedi.

            2) Peace Corps Service is an emotional roller coaster. I’ve heard this from every volunteer I have had the pleasure to discuss service with. Over the next 27 months, I will experience the worst of the worst and the absolute best of the best. I’ve already found this to be true, but what I didn’t realize was that this happens hour to hour and minute to minute. In the end however, it’s the little things like singing “Sho Sholosa” and the National Anthem of South Africa with my family under an incredible night sky that makes me think, no matter what happened today, I am grateful to be here.

            3) Your Peace Corps Cohort will be the people you laugh, cry, struggle and triumph with throughout your service. I never thought that the 34 strangers I met less than a month ago in Philadelphia would become my biggest inspiration for working as hard as possible throughout training.