Today, I went back to Colombo Norte. Colombo Norte is a building I first stepped into mid-October of 2011. It is the building in which I spent my first 10 weeks in Colombia as a Trainee, learning Stuff and Things like Spanish and also teaching methods, in order to prepare for my PCV service.
This time, I arrived at Colombo as part of the PC training team.
For a variety of reasons, what will be my main project for the final 3 months of my service recently switched from co-teaching, to filling a different sort of role--kind of like that of a traditional third-year volunteer. This role includes being a member of the PC Colombia technical training team.
As we pulled into the parking lot of Colombo Norte, I was remembering what it was like to be sitting up at the lunch tables, watching the training team pull in. My old trainer/new co-worker turned to me--"Bring back good memories?"
"Definitely memories," I said, joking. "I wouldn't necessarily say good."
He took that in stride and we walked inside. "Just think," he said. "You're going to be a part of someone's memories now." He took another step, and then turned back--"Not necessarily good ones," he added slyly.
That got me thinking. I certainly didn't take it personally. See, the thing is, training is a really, really weird time. It marks a lot of transitions. It also involves a lot of 8:00-5:00 classes and group time and cafeteria lunch. It is not unlike high school, if high school came along with hour-long crowded city bus rides and complete cultural dislocation 24/7. Maybe still a lot like high school? Except a whole lot harder, because, well, you know that sweet taste of independence we all loved so much when we left for college at age 18? Yeah. It's totally and completely gone. And it won't be back, really, throughout your entire time here.
What you trade it in for, though, is something crazy and wacky and intense and unique and hopefully worth it.
Either way, it all starts with Training.
If anyone from the new group, CII-5, is reading this, then here's what I have to say to you:
You just started training. You will exist in a very strange bubble for 10 weeks. You'll sit in tiny chair-desks in crowded rooms being lectured on some things you already knew and many things you didn't, and all the while you'll be chafing at the reins to get to your next step: Peace Corps Service.
People will comfort you by saying to trust the process, and this is the easy part and you should enjoy it, but it's cold comfort because you came to serve in Peace Corps: you want real adventure and true challenges and you want them now!
You will swim along anyway, because you're good at being challenged in many different ways, and you trust yourself to be flexible, or else how'd you think you'd be able to do this in the first place? Keeping that trust in yourself to be capable will help. However, know that although the fishbowl gets old pretty quick, it's there to stay. (Word to the wise: It will be a long time until you are comfortable and settled. A really, really long time.)
So here's the deal: in this strange time of your life, you will be broken down. You will assess and examine parts of yourself you never thought would garner a second glance. You will prepare for something that can't really be prepared for, only experienced, and when you get into the next stages it might be a long while before you realize the importance of all you really learned or be able to pick out the significance of the lessons you were learning even while you thought you'd never get to the "really" important ones.
You'll suck it up because it's part of the experience, and you'll love it and you'll fight it and you'll make new best friends and wish no one existed and then you'll love all your fellow PCVs, even the ones you at first found unlovable, incredibly dearly.
And then you will be left with yourself. Or really, the pieces of you--the things about yourself that changed due to circumstance and also your own will. You'll realize that nothing quite fits together the way it used to.
And that's okay.
Just remember, when you go to rebuild, that if you end up with something that's totally different from before, it's maybe closer to what it should be. Don't fall into the comparison trap: this is an individual voyage. And no matter how it seems, there are no wrong answers.
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