Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Ending)

On the way back to my site, I mulled over what had happened. I thought that Peace Corps would have been more willing to give me a site change. I could not believe that I was about to quit the Peace Corps. Distraught and emotionally drained, I thought about what I would say to the people at my site when I got back. I had been gone for a couple of weeks, since I had been at mandatory training events several hours away. I couldn't believe that I was placed in this position, and I felt like the bad guy, a whiny Peace Corps Volunteer giving up on his community. Then my phone rang.

It was the Peace Corps country director's secretary. She told me that the Peace Corps administration wanted to have a meeting with me and that I needed to turn around and come back to the headquarters before reaching my site. About halfway to my site, and not able to make the journey back to headquarters before nightfall, I stayed the night at a hostel with a fellow Volunteer and prepared to make the journey back the next day.

My mind was racing. Did this mean that they changed their mind and wanted to give me a site change. Were they angry? At this point, my friends in Peace Corps had started flooding the inboxes of Peace Corps staff, irate over the fact that I was not being offered a site change. They spoke about my work ethic and leadership qualities. I was amazed at how much support I received from other Volunteers.

I was called again the next day on the way to the meeting, again by the country director's secretary. She told me not to worry, that the country director, the security officer, my training director, my boss, and a Peace Corps medical officer would be there and that they all wanted to help me. My heart seemed to leap up through my throat; maybe I would be staying in Guatemala after all! Still, a meeting of this nature was unprecedented; I had never heard of it happening before, and I still had my doubts. However, I reasoned with myself, why would so many staff members show up to a meeting to kick me out or yell at me? I finally decided that this meeting was a good thing and that it would have a good outcome.

I entered Peace Corps headquarters and was told by my training director to wait until they were ready for me. My heart beating rapidly, I decided to wait in the computer room. Eventually they were ready for me. As I approached the door to the meeting room, my palms started to sweat. My heart raced. Entering, the room setting was ominous. All of the staff members were seated around a long wooden table. The country director beckoned for me to sit next to her near the head of the table. I felt like I was on trial.

She spoke first. "Jordan, we have been getting a lot of e-mails from other Volunteers telling us about your story. But we don't want to hear from them; we want to hear from you. Could you tell us what's going on, in your own words?'

I felt like I was losing my mind. I had been telling them my story for the last several months. Still, I maintained my composure and told them my entire story, feeling very uncomfortable as my boss' intense stare burned red-hot on my skin. I felt bad criticizing him at all, him being my boss, but I knew that I was right. I was not going to be intimidated, since this was likely my last chance to stay in Guatemala.

Finishing my long story, I said, "And for those reasons, I believe that I deserve a site change. I really want to be here, and I believe that my site is not ready for a Volunteer."

The country director thought about what I said for a second, and asked me, "What can we do to make you stay in your site?"

"I just don't think I can do it anymore in my site. I mentally and physically can't do it," I explained.

"How can we get you to stay in your site?" she retorted. They kept at it. They kept telling me to stay in my site and how great of a Volunteer I was. They wore me down. I told them that I could not go back to my site until a house was built for me, which meant everything that was originally promised: a house with electricity and access to water for cleaning dishes. The country director told me that she would send my boss to my site to verify that everything had been built. In the meantime, I would stay at headquarters taking classes with the Peace Corps' only Q'eqchi teacher and work on development project ideas.

"Ok, you've convinced me to stay," I uttered. The words felt like a mistake as soon as I said them. I left the meeting unsettled. I did not feel at peace with my decision. I did not think the house would ever get built, and I did not think things would improve at my site. I decided to sleep on my decision to stay and stick to this new plan.

Trying to make the decision whether or not I really wanted to stay in my current site kept me up all night. I talked to a good friend of mine on the phone, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer. I was really losing it. I told him that I was losing my mind and really being affected by all of this. I said that I hated this, and I couldn't handle it anymore.

Right away he replied, "Dude, this isn't you. This is just a job. Don't let Peace Corps do this to you. If that's really how you feel, you need to leave." Always one to give me good advice, I took his words to heart.

Later that night, I was still trying to decide what to do. I called my father and wandered though town. I wandered not seeing or feeling anything, completely in a daze. Ultimately, he told me that I had to make the decision that was best for me. Another good friend of mine in the Peace Corps had said the same thing over the past few weeks. He told me to completely forget about letting down my boss, my community, my parents or my friends and to take a deep breath and be present in the moment. Then, the decision should come to me, he said.

Later still, I felt so bad about possibly leaving my community that I became physically ill. I went to the bathroom and vomited several times. This type of thing had never happened to me before. I sat on my bed and wrote a pro and con list that I had started earlier that day. Pro was for the reasons I should stay. Con was for the reasons I should leave. I had the same number of pros and cons. I paused for a second. In the back of my mind, I said to myself, Darn I don't have enough cons to leave. There it was. That was how I truly felt. At that moment I decided that I was going to leave the Peace Corps, and it felt like I had lifted a huge weight off my shoulder. I laid down on my bed, and I fell asleep.

The next day, I went to see my training director, who had been a great friend to me during my time in Guatemala. He smiled when I entered his office. He thought that I had come to discuss my plan for the weeks to come. Instead, I confidently approached his desk, shook his hand and said, "I'm going to leave Guatemala."

Shocked and upset, he said, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I replied.

"Well, go talk to the country director, and see what she says about it," he told me. I walked over to her office.

The country director, someone who always seemed to be fond of me, smiled when I knocked on her door and told me to come in. "I've decided to leave Guatemala," I said.

Surprised, she exclaimed, "Have you thought about this? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I've thought about it a lot. I'm sure," I stated. She sat me down in one of the chairs in her office and pulled another one across from me. We talked for a while, and she appeared to be upset. I noticed tears welling up in her eyes as she listened to me speak. The country directorhad made a lot of enemies with the Peace Corps Volunteers, but I felt that she meant well. She told me to go back to my site, say my goodbyes, and "end well."

Then, as I was just about to leave, she said something that astonished me. She calmly asked me, "Jordan, what if I could give you a site change? I just don't want you to leave without me having offered it. I can't promise anything or give you a timetable on when it would happen."

I will forever wonder why she never said this at the meeting the day before. This last-minute effort to give me a site change probably had political motives, a way for her to write in a final report that she had given me an "out" before I left.

Peace Corps had turned into a game, and I was not going to play it anymore. Astounded that she had just asked me that, I thought about it for a second and said, "You know what? It's going to sound really bad that I am turning down a possible site change, but I have made up my mind, and I need to leave." We said a few more words, and I walked out.

Today, the country director's words, "I cant promise anything" still ring in my ears. I have since moved on and will soon be moving to start a job doing community development work across the country, but I will always remember what happened.

Peace Corps does not need to promise much to its Volunteers. My fellow Peace Corps Volunteers are some of the most intelligent, ambitious and resourceful people I know, and they are fully capable of working with limited resources. But when a Volunteer is placed in a site with no housing, limited access to clean food and no knowledge of the local language, what does Peace Corps expect will happen?

So no, I did not complete my Peace Corps service, and I did not have the complete Peace Corps experience, but I had a Peace Corps experience. And in the future, 10, 20, or 30 years from now, when the topic of Peace Corps comes up in conversation, I can say, "Yeah I did that, and I gave it one hell of a shot."