Things Getting Tough
Hannah Fairweather, TESS 137
As the new cohort prepares to come to Thailand, I want to share some hard truths. For me, two of the most difficult things about service so far have been mental. The first is feeling misunderstood by others. The other is comparing my Peace Corps experience with other PCVs.
Misunderstood
My site is remote, about a ten-hour bus ride from Bangkok, and there aren’t many young foreigners around. In America, I loved going out, dating, having fun, seeing friends, and having time to myself. I’m also very independent, so adjusting to a life where I can’t always make my own plans or go wherever I want has been difficult.
I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss being able to hug them, go out with them, and have a social life that doesn’t require hours of planning and travel. I miss dating. I miss having a bad day and being able to see a friend who already understands my life without having to explain everything. This past weekend, I went on a trip and tried to fit in everything I feel like I’m missing at site: friend time, me time, and dating time. I got my Botox, washed my hair, had a spa day, saw friends, and went on a date. I was trying to fit an entire version of my old life into three days because I don’t really get those things at site. I got overwhelmed. I just wanted to feel like myself again.
Sometimes, my friends here don’t understand why I try to fit so much into such a short amount of time, why I don’t want to just have a “friend weekend,” or why I even want to go on a date. But I also understand why they might not get it. It’s not that I don’t value these friendships, because I really do. We just have different experiences. Our sites, lives before the Peace Corps, personalities, friends back home, and the things we miss are all different. What I need to feel happy and fulfilled here might look different from what someone else needs, and that’s okay.
When you get to your site, you might realize that it’s hard to explain your life to the people around you. I can’t tell my counterparts about a date I went on in Bangkok that ended the next morning with me finding out the guy had a girlfriend. I can’t tell them about an argument with my friends and expect them to understand why it upset me so much. I really find that leaning on the people at home, calling, FaceTiming, even texting helps me feel seen.
Comparison
I sometimes forget that just because another volunteer is having an amazing weekend, traveling constantly, going on dates, surrounded by other foreigners, or posting beautiful pictures of their site, it doesn’t mean my service is supposed to look like theirs. The opposite is true, too. Just because one may be having a difficult time at site doesn’t mean everyone else should be. Despite what may be portrayed online - you never actually know what’s REALLY going on at someone’s site.
We all came into the Peace Corps with different lives, expectations, personalities, support systems, and needs. Of course our experiences are going to look different, and that’s okay. The biggest thing I want the new cohort to know is: don’t use someone else’s Peace Corps experience as the measuring stick for your own.
You might see someone’s Instagram story and think, “Why don’t I have that?” You might see someone traveling every weekend and feel like you’re doing something wrong because you’re spending your weekends alone. You might see someone who has become best friends with their counterparts and wonder why you haven’t. You might see someone dating, partying, traveling, or surrounded by other volunteers and wonder why your life doesn’t look like that.
But your life before Peace Corps matters. Your personality matters. Your site matters. Your access to transportation matters. Your relationships matter. What you need to feel happy and fulfilled matters.
And sometimes, doing what you need to do to feel like yourself again means having a weekend where you are not thinking about being a Peace Corps Volunteer at all. That doesn’t make you a bad volunteer.
I’m still learning how to balance all of this. I don’t have a perfect answer. I just know that service is complicated, and it’s important to be honest about that. You can love your community and still feel lonely. You can be grateful to be here and still miss your old life. You can love your service and still hate parts of it. Those things can all be true at the same time.
