Close of Service

In the Peace Corps acronym-laden world this is also called COS. That’s where we are now… at the close, the finish, the end. It kind of snuck up on us really. At one point we were back home for my sister’s wedding, the next we were back here and heading to the COS conference!
It’s the conference I want to talk about. Partly because it is a very insightful event that you wouldn’t think a government agency would take the time, and more importantly, the money to do. I wonder about the history of the conference, was it something they started way back in 1963 or did it develop over time as they realized the need?
It is basically a three-day event where they get you back together with all of the people you started this crazy adventure with. These are the same people that we first met in Washington DC two years ago! It’s not as if we haven’t randomly run into, or had visits with these people… but it is the first time since we all graduated training that we are all back together in one spot! It was really great to see everyone again. Well, all but Jason and Ryan who are now home awaiting the arrival of their first little girl! Outside of that exception we all really enjoyed hanging out and catching up. Beyond all of that, I think it was important to have some time sharing experiences with each other, see the changes, talk about future plans.
Of course it isn’t just passing time, there are a ton of charlas (as we call them here in the Latin American world). The first day we covered the labyrinthine process of actually exiting the PC, meaning all of the forms, reports and interviews we need to accomplish. No wonder they do the conference almost three months prior to your end of service, it takes that long to get everything done! The next day we covered the more touchy-feely aspect of how to deal with going back to the States. What will it feel like, what will you do? There were some concrete discussions on things like how to use the PC resources to look for jobs, how to write a good resume and include your PC service in a way that employers could understand. The last day was spent mostly on how to deal with leaving your site. The feeling of leaving a community that you have become an integral part of and now have to wrench yourself away from.
Each of these aspects of the COS conference deserves some elaboration, and since I’m not really sure who my audience is for this blog entry, I’m just going to go more or less chronologically.
So, the first day. By far the most intimidating thing was the fact that on the very first day, you have to actually set the date that you cease to be a volunteer. Your true, personal COS date. See, something that most of us didn’t realize when we signed up is that even though we have our official COS date, the PC allows you to leave any time up to a month before that; in our case anytime between October 28th and November 28th. Katie and I chose November 19th. We wanted to be around for our schools graduation on the 12th, and have a bit of overlap time with the new volunteer who will arrive at our site on the 15th. So there we are, we now have a date, and more importantly for us, we can now buy our ticket for Argentina!
So some of the things that have to be accomplished by that date (we have a checklist which needs signatures) are, write our final report and description of service (DOS), have a final interview with the country director (CD) and our APCD (sorry never bothered to learn what that stood for, but its our direct supervisor), final Spanish interview, and of course have our final Medical Clearance. We had to pick dates to accomplish each of these tasks. By the time we were done with all of this it began to sink in how little time we had left!
The second day. As I said, this day we spent a lot of time talking about life after PC, including the re-adjustment phenomenon. There was a panel of RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) who talked about their experiences heading back home. It was interesting to note that only one of our group of 24 folks hadn’t gone home at least once during our two years down here. El Salvador is not that far away. Some people who went to school out of state were actually farther away from home when they went to college than they are now. That combined with internet and cell phones means that our experiences are very different from the PCVs serving in more remote countries or those of a few years ago even here in El Sal.
I will be interested in hearing some of our group’s reaction on returning home. It’s not that I think there will be major breakdowns or anything, but my general impression is that most aren’t giving themselves much time to readjust, and don’t really understand the need. As someone who has “dropped out” of the normal social structure a number of times (though not for two years like this). I know how different it makes you feel. My most used example is the “Seinfeld phenomenon”. One of those years where I was gone firefighting and then off traveling was the year of the rise to pop culture status of Seinfeld. I missed it all, and even now people who were in the flow will use a Seinfeld reference, and I will just look at them blankly while they wonder what planet I’m from.
Ok, on to the third day. For me this whole thing is one of the more interesting parts of service. The act of leaving a real community. As “estadounidense” or “norteamericanos” most of us don’t really live in communities, or I should say not close-knit family-like communities. Many of use have lived in Suburbia, which is like the antithesis of a real community. So to me, the volunteers leaving from these types of communities will be a unique experience in their (and our) lives. When Katie and I left The Pocket, we barely felt the need to say goodbye to anyone! We kind of knew our immediate neighbors, but it would be a stretch to say that any of them were friends. Here we have so many people we need to say goodbye to, and spend some time with before we go! I feel like we have it a little better in that we plan to come back through here after our trip to Argentina, still, it is an emotional thing.
Ok, so this has gotten a little long, but I wanted to give you an idea of what this phase of Peace Corps life is about.
Update: So, this also took forever to get posted so now we are even closer to our departure date, a mear 15 days!! Yikes! The blogs should get more frequent once we start traveling, and I expect that even along that journey, our thoughts and my posts will still sometimes be about El Centro and our Peace Corps experiences. Cheers!