La Vida Lila: Close of Service

The Peace Corps will change you. It will be subtle over the course of your service, but how can you not grow, adapt, change, learn, and better yourself in the face of such adversity and stimulation? You will inspire, motivate, and push yourself and your peers as they do you. Fellow PCVs will become your best friends, confidantes, and family. Your host community will become your world, sanctuary, and home. Your relationships will teach you, transform your way of thinking, and encourage you to do more and be better. Your projects will reach somebody, become a catalyst in someone’s life, and be a change agent for the future.

You might be asked to teach mothers in a foreign language about early childhood stimulation on day four. You might be compared to any and all other foreigners that have passed through your community in the past century. You might confront the truest form of poverty. You might contract or fall ill to stomach issues, insect bites, fungus, or other serious health issues. You might soil yourself. You might cry in the arms of a stranger. You might find your self robbed in an unknown city. You might hear the birth of your goddaughter through the adobe walls of your home. You might even love and learn from each and every one of these authentic experiences.

Although the Peace Corps experience is surreal, it will stay very present in your life through unexpected knowledge gained, new interpretations of society, life, and behavior, and irregular relationships that teach you to truly stand in someone else’s shoes. You will experience transcendental growth and acquire awe-inspiring feelings of love and admiration towards your community, students, counterparts, host family, and other PCVs. All that has happened to me and transpired because of me in my 27 months of service will influence my outlook on the world of which I now note through a different, diversified, and learned lens.