The Last Chapter

Proof that it is time for me to go home? I got slapped in the head by a crazy lady on the street this week and I didn’t even mind. Seriously. There is this lady that walks around Mbeya town with an insane big red streaked weave, wearing bright crazy eye makeup and powder made for white faces, sometimes carrying a stuffed animal, always arguing with herself. Usually she just struts around town in her own little world, but not this time. She was walking down the hill and I was walking up the hill on the main street in front of the post office. She was yelling at herself, I was texting. Next thing I know, she’s yelling at me. I tried to ignore her and just step around her and keep walking, but she stepped in front of me and got in my face yelling who knows what. When I tried to step around her again, she was indignant and pulled back and straight up slapped me up the side of my head. Everyone walking around us on the street stopped and stared, waiting for my reaction. To my great surprise, I didn’t even skip a beat. I just kept texting and walked right on by her. That’s how at peace I am with finishing my service this week.
It’s weird. I feel I’ve been counting down the days until I get to go home for such a long time, that now all of the sudden that its down to 1, it feels like it just snuck up on me. I don’t really think it has hit me yet. I said goodbye to my village on Monday and it just felt so calm and normal, not like it was goodbye forever. Then I went to Matema Beach on Lake Malawi one last time for a couple of my PCV friends’ wedding. I didn’t feel like that was the last opportunity to hang out with those people in Tanzania. Sunday morning I said goodbye to my friends in Mbeya. But it didn’t feel like goodbye goodbye. More like a bye, I have to go to Dar, I’ll see you next week kind of bye.
But it’s real. It’s happening. It’s over.
And how can I really sum up these last 2 years? I can’t. It’s too much to process all at once. I don’t really know if I have done anything truly significant for the betterment of Tanzania. But (as completely cheesy as it sounds) I know that Tanzania has done something for the betterment of me. I wanted to grow up a little. To test myself. To push myself out of my comfort zone. To learn to survive and thrive out on my own, in unfamiliar territory. I’m more confident in my own skin. I feel like I know myself better. I’ve become more confortable with silence and stillness and just sitting. But I still have a thirst for more. I can’t wait for the next chapter in my life. I truly have no idea what the future holds for me. I’m not even sure which continent I’ll be on this time next year. But I’ve developed an ability to take life as it comes. Make plans if you want to, but adjust them when you need to.
I used to always need to know the next step. And although I still like to have an idea of what’s ahead, I can just enjoy the moment better due to this experience. It’s okay to slow down once in a while. It’s okay to change your mind. I’ve somehow come to the conclusion that I want to go to nursing school when I get home, even though I’ve never considering that career path before in my life. I’m craving something a little more concrete after two years of blowing in the wind. It’s been a great period to explore and grow, and now I want a little structure. At least for a while. Then maybe I won’t. And that will be ok too. That’s one aspect of nursing that really appeals to me, that you can do almost anything almost anywhere in the world with it.
And the best bonus of this once in a lifetime experience…finding the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. During my application process, my recruiter mentioned that a lot of people do find love in the Peace Corps. Mine may be in an unusual way, meeting a Brazilian in Tanzania rather than a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer or Host Country National, but I think that’s one thing that makes it so great. All of the tiny decisions we made that brought us here and put us together. Fate, if you ask me. I’m so glad that I’ll always have someone who understands this period in my life, because he experienced it right along with me. He’s been there through some of the toughest most stressful times that I’ve probably ever had (everything is a million times more dramatic feeling when you’re so far from home in a place so unlike home).
And now we get to let life take us wherever it will together in this next chapter of our lives. No, stratch that. I feel like this is the last chapter of an entirely different book in my life. Nothing will ever be quite like these last two years have been. A first year PCV friend of mine asked me the other day if I had to do all over again knowing everything that I know now, would I still choose to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, and I answered her, definitely. Despite all of the annoyances and the homesickness and the setbacks, this complete experience has been completely worth it. I don’t see how anyone could ever possibly regret being a PCV.
So though I’m here in Dar, completing the COS (close of service) process, I agree with what they told us at our COS conference in May. Not to think of this as the close of service, but just preparing for a continuation of service. For a lifetime of giving back to the world that has given me so much. For continuing to live life always wanting to learn more, to do more. To see as much of this playground of a world we live in as possible. And to keep asking myself the question that Peace Corps first asked me over 2 years ago, “Life is calling, how far will you go?”