So as you all may very well know, I am writing this from Oregon. I would say I’m writing it from home… but that would feel a bit like a lie.

I was instructed (as per usual with all my blogs) when/how to write so here I sit in a bed that isn’t familiar but is extremely comfortable… about what the heck happened over the last few weeks so that my loyal readers can feel apart of it all. Thanks, Bapa.

Peace Corps Panama was put on a “standfast” part of the “Emergency Action Plan” about… Goodness me I don’t even know how long ago. Let’s see I’ve been home for 3 days… We were in transit for 2.. In a hotel in Panama for 3 and on stand fast for about 3 days… So what? Like a week and a half ago? Pardon me while I try to work through this math. Perhaps I should erase this and give dates but… I think this is a good indication of where I am at. The last two weeks have been the longest blur. 

Ok so Standfast is the first phase of being ready to move. They tell you to pack what you can and wait, we are not allowed to leave our sites and must be prepared to stay in site for X amount of time. I am/was lucky that I lived in a city so buying groceries was easy and I didn’t really need to super stock up (this is all hindsight speaking). Usually no one packs a bag because the stand fast always passes quickly and painlessly. We were told by the office that they didn’t foresee anything happening so to sit tight and just wait out the two weeks. They repeated several times that they were “optimistic about us being able to continue our service”. I understand they really believed that, but looking back I am bit bitter that it felt like one big lie to not cause panic. Well joke is on them because in every group chat there were discussions about leaving/evac and an upkeep on news from other Peace Corps countries being evacuated or offered “Interrupted Service” which is basically letting you leave with no consequence and you can come back if things get better. I was basically waiting for Monday to roll around to get the IS email.. I was seriously considering it at my father/family’s behest but had not made a decision yet. So stand fast comes and I see all the locura in the news about things happening in the states so I stock up. I spent $74 (that is A LOT in Panama/for a PCV) on groceries. Complete happenstance that I was out of hand soap, toilet paper and bleach when I went. So to look like a crazy gringa, I had to get all of those supplies. I over stocked for someone who was a 7 min walk from three grocery stores. But it allowed me to spend a few days in real comfort actually cooking… I randomly bought some Panamanian food that I never usually did and I’m glad I did now because my last few days was me eating traditional food and some really fresh veggies (the tomatoes in David hit different than they do here and they were SO good).

Day one of stand fast/ the university being closed, I went out with Kate (the full bright fellow that came to my school) and we planned a really cool professional development workshop for the university professors. We were both really passionate about making this year sustainable and fun for the profes and also the students. Even though we only had 2ish months together, Kate and I became pretty good friends and I always enjoyed our time together both professional and personal. In a bit of a later blog I’ll talk more about a few of the trips we did… but that isn’t important right now. But she and I got some really amazing coffee (she introduced me to this WONDERFUL cafe right before we leave.. cool cool cool) and we went to the nice department store and I finally found a coffee maker to use (good timing). We went back to her house and she made us some really good iced coffee. I felt good… I remember we sat and talked about our dream dinner guests and it sparked a conversation about socialism and society and governmental changes and it felt really GOOD. I was like “Ok, I can do this few week thing with friends like her”. The next few days we go together a few more times for a couple hours to just get out… we went to our last Ropa Americana and I got a few shirts and a house dress all for $3.

Day two after getting the Ropa Nueva I spent my day cleaning. I decided that I probably wasn’t crazy about all this doomsday talk (many of the other PCVs I talked to they told me to chill so many times because I said we wouldn’t get evacuated) and that I should prepare. So I cleaned up and out all my apartment. I made it easy to see what clothes I wanted to take and which I was ok leaving if they didn’t fit into my bags. It took the whole day and I felt really good and organized and clean up after stressing out for so long.

At some point we got the evacuation text basically saying we had 7 hours to pack and say goodbye. We were allowed two checked bags and one carry on, but the rest would have to stay. From that point on is pretty blurred together. I remember calling Kate and Edward and they came over right away. In full blown amazing friend status they helped me take pictures off my wall and roll my clothes to put them into my suitcases. We drank the half bottle of rum I had had in my apartment for a few months with my final Dr. Pepper. We cheers’d to our time lost and I helped them to decide to book their tickets home as well. That was my first bittersweet goodbye… well not goodbye… just see ya later. After that my friend Rolando came over and helped me. We sat and talked about the crazy world and the fun times we had over the last 6 months of being friends. He took all my food so I didn’t feel bad about wasting anything and reassured me with hugs and words. He is a good pal. I stood on my porch with a new lightbulb I had just put in because my other one was stolen over my Christmas vacation (not an important detail but one I thought of). I waved at him as he drove off and thought “well…. This is weird”. When I walked inside I slowly took in my surroundings… My now empty living room except the big things I couldn’t bring, my kitchen which only had my fridge and some empty shelving, my extra room/closet which sadly held rejected clothing and more items I had no business packing. I went to bed that night with a confused and heavy heart staring at the ceiling just waiting to wake up.

The next morning my host sister and dad came over. We talked to my landlady and she can keep my apartment until the 15th of April… She seemed less than sad to say goodbye and that was ok. My host dad hugged me for the first time since I’ve known him and reassured me that their doors were always open and that I was really a true chiricana and part of his family. My host sister said similar things. Saying goodbye to my host mom was way more difficult than I anticipated. I didn’t realize the quiet bond we had formed over the last year through very short conversations and comfortable silences. We pulled up to the house to say goodbye and she teared up right away which made me lose it. I had to practically run out of the house waving quickly. She stood very small in the doorway waving and saying “hasta pronto”… In my heart I know I want to go back to visit at the very least, but suddenly I felt angry that the year I was supposed to have with this family was torn from me. I felt a great pit in my heart that was dragging it down into darkness and confusion. My host sister and dad stayed with me until the private bus left for Panama city… They bought me my last hojaldres because my host dad was appalled that I didn’t eat breakfast.

My host sister apologized for being too busy to hang out the previous weekend and telling me she would see me this week. I assured her that was nonsense and no one knew what was coming… but I regret deeply not just forcing my way over and spending time with them. Asi es la vida a veces.

These were my biggest hits from David… I hadn’t made many friends in site, I didn’t have relationships with many families that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to. I was really lucky in that regard. 

But I went from really hating David to calling it my home. I already miss the annoying dogs next to me and the stifling heat. I miss sitting in my hammock in front of the fan reading or staring or talking on the phone. I miss sweating so much that I had to peel off clothing. I miss taxi drivers honking at me. All the things I hated when I was there suddenly seem like the only familiar things in the world.

Ahh yes the hotel stay in between. All 200 volunteers made their way to the hotel in Panama City where 150 of us would get stuck. We spent 3 days of continued goodbyes and uncertainty if we were actually leaving or not. Information was never real because every 30 min something would cancel or change or whatever. Ive spent more time in a state of complete *shrug* over having answers. 3 flight cancelations 2 delays and 1 changed flight later.. I’m back in Oregon. Peace Corps teaches you to remain flexible and embrace ambiguity… I really thought they only meant for our sites but, it turns out its for real life too.

About a year now I’d been living comfortably in a Peace Corps bubble. I knew there was an outside world, but for a long time I was living in my own little one surrounded by like minded people who taught me more about life than I could have thought possible. They say you’ll never be able to explain Peace Corps or your Peace Corps friends to anyone and I’m starting to see that now. I have grown a lot in the past few years but in the past year the most. 

Peace Corps stripped me raw and broke me in ways that I didn’t know was possible for a job. But it also offered me a group of humans so unique and special in my life that I can never replace. It gave me tools to live in some weird circumstances and patience for the times where nothing seemed real. 

It is with a still very heavy and confused heart that I arrive back to Oregon. I am staring at a year that I had planned to be away and able to slowly figure out a next step. I am thinking on all the plans I had carefully made over the last year to try and implement with my school this year. I am stewing over the life/house I had built up in an unfortunately hot spot. I feel like Harry Potter at the end of the first movie: “I’m not going home… not really”.

How do you explain to friends and family who are so excited to see you home and safe that you are miserable? How do you tell your grandparents who are so excited to see you back home that you’d like to be left alone? How to you tell your parents who have gone out of their way to let you quarantine in their home and support you in this transition that you  are having a hard time feeling anything right now? How do you even begin to answer the question “how are you doing?”?

I have had a year stolen from me. I had so many plans that will either never happen or will happen but not for many years. I had friendships made and quickly lost. I had a home that I made with my own stress, insecurity and ambiguity that was set ablaze. I had learned to find comforts in new ways that were ripped from me. I know none of this is the Peace Corps’ fault. It wasn’t a decision that any staff member or head hancho made lightly. Ripping 7,000+ volunteers was a logistical and tactical nightmare but with the spread of this COVID-19… there was no choice for our safety. I don’t blame anyone, and that makes it all the harder to process. I want to blame the Peace Corps, I want to blame other countries that spread this illness, I want to blame the idiots that can’t just sit home for a few weeks instead of still going on that spring break they planned and potentially infecting more and more people. But I have to be an adult about this? What kind of new age healthy mentality is that?

There are people in worse positions than I am, I know that. There are some PCVs with no where to go. There are people losing their jobs left and right. Everyone is worried yet the world is still spinning. I know all this will be ok, and it will work itself out. I know that eventually I’ll feel like laughing and talking to friends from home again. I know that life, like it always does, will work itself out to being normal.

But for now, I’m not ok. I’m sad and moody. I’m also weirdly empty. The shock, perhaps, hasn’t worn its self off yet and I’m still in denial. Being forced to come home might not look so insane if I could come back to normalcy. If I could come back and go to the movies or the gym or anything. If I could go visit friends in other states or family. But coming home and being stuck in a room for two weeks has helped this feeling of dread and despair sink in further and further.

I’m not writing this for sympathy. I know the whole world is in a pretty dark place. I am writing this so that if you know a PCV, maybe don’t ask them how they are. Maybe don’t tell them you’re excited they are home and safe. Maybe don’t ask them what is next… We don’t know the answer to any of it. We were ripped from a home we spent a lot of time building and communities that some of us may never see again. Torn from friendships, relationships, dearly loved ones, projects almost completed or just starting, and pets. That is the trouble with living abroad, I know. But without the time to say goodbye, leaving like some fugitive in the night… it feels too big to grasp, too sad to contemplate, and too much hurt to face right now. 

So that is where I am right now. I still love everyone and am willing to talk on the phone… but please know that if I don’t smile or answer you with grace… it’s just a reflection of where I am in my life right now-