May 20, 2010: the end of training.

Yesterday were our final interviews before swearing-in, where we touch base with the Country Director, our Program Director, and everyone else in the office: before we officially pledge to stay here for 24 months in front of the U.S. Ambassador, shortly after we unintentionally slaughter the Costa Rican national anthem.

We also lost another volunteer yesterday, which makes four.

The first people to leave were a married couple in their 70s, and their departure was outside of their control. It’s hard to get used to a new environment and new foods and a diet consisting almost entirely of rice and grease, and the effects of that change get amplified by age. It was hard to see them go, but it happened relatively early in training, and the problem had been growing and growling in the background for weeks when they left, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected. When they left, I became the oldest person in Tico 20, a role I fit into without a problem, given my incessant use of the word “rad” and receding hairline, both of which are strong indicators of being older than Jesus.

The third left shortly after our very first interview with our program manager (which, in my hazy recollection, was around the third or fourth week). She had left a job she loved very much in the States, a career path she had groomed and blossomed in, and simply realized she wasn’t in the right place. I respect her decision: she sounds amazingly happy to be back in the U.S., and, while you usually hear this said in a condescending manner, the Peace Corps isn’t for everyone. What I mean when I say that is that this volunteer’s departure was definitely the Peace Corps’ loss: she is smart, professional, and talented, and will make a tremendous difference no matter where she is. She made the decision that she would make more of a difference back home.

The thing is that all of us could probably make a bigger difference back home, if one looks at things with any measure of objectivity. We’re working in a foreign culture, in a second language, in low-resource environments and isolated from friends and family: not exactly a recipe for workplace efficiency. This is more of a new-frontier-testing-the-mettle-of-our-youth kind of experience, a development-cum-cultural-exchange-program-cum-two-year-ropes-course. We will all do good work: I have no doubts that my compañeros in this group – an amazing, inspiring, and dedicated group of people – will change the lives of hundreds of Costa Ricans over the next two years. All I’m saying is that our ability to do that work is strongly amplified when we don’t have to spend 60% of your time attempting to interpret cultural clues we’re utterly unfamiliar with.

Anyway. You may be able to tell I’ve been thinking a lot about this. And maybe have a little self-doubt.

The volunteer who left today felt different. I felt jerked around, disappointed. That’s not fair to the volunteer who left, I suppose. He had his reasons – doubts which he had expressed from the first day I met him, the first day we were in Costa Rica – and I’m in no position to judge whether he made a good decision or not. It was just different. Going through training with someone for 11 weeks and then watching them leave a day before we become actual volunteers was hard in a way I hadn’t expected it to be.

It certainly made me think about my commitment. Tomorrow I take an solemn, official oath, right hand in the air and tie tight around the neck, that I’m going to stay here in Costa Rica for two years; that I will dedicate my next two years to living in a tiny community of 700 people and doing my best to befriend all of them; that I will sweat incessantly for the next two years; that I will eventually, at some point in the next two years, probably wear sandals long enough to finally feel comfortable in them; that this is real and I will actually be a resident of Costa freaking Rica for 24 months. I will know the tiny side streets and the holes to look out for and which pulpería has the cheapest ice cream. I will get to know local politics in a way I never did back in Denver. I will make friends and we will only talk in Spanish. I will learn what makes Costa Rican high school students laugh, besides my terrible accent. I will get terribly tanned and live on a beach. I will be broke all the time. I will learn to swim in the ocean.

I will feel like I’m home when I lay down at night.

I’m ready.

I think.