I know that it has been a really long time since I have posted and attempted to explain what has been going on with my life. I think it is because I have been really struggling with getting closure on serving in Honduras. It took me forever to write up my COS (completion of service) narrative which explains all the things accomplished during service. It took me forever to write a paper on my curriculum design work for independent study credits for grad school. Why-? I am usually so on top of this stuff check it off the list, annoyingly proactive mentality. It was almost like I was scared to sit down and commit to wrapping up my experience there in a pretty little bow and move on. Unfortunately this mentality carried on to my blog, and for this I am sorry dear readers. But I can not procrastinate any longer because tomorrow I leave for Mexico to live and work there for a year. And you are probably asking yourself how the hell did this come to be. Well hopefully in this post I can clear up the gap and explain the new plan starting tomorrow.
Coming back to the states it became painstakingly obvious that there was no way that Peace Corps Honduras was going to get legs again anytime, and that none of us were going back. This totally threw a monkey wrench in my life plan. I am a planner (as many of you might know) and this kind of threw me into a tizzy. I was worried about what this meant for me academically, being a PCMI ( Peace Corps Masters International) student- When Peace Corps service officially ended it was too late to start up my last semester of my masters, scholarships, financial aide, practicum teaching-- all were looming issues. Fortunately I was so blessed to have the support of the MIIS faculty and administration. They were very understanding accepted my completion of service from Peace Corps, even though it was 7 months instead of the typical 27 because of the extenuating circumstances. So the new plan was to go back to Monterey in the fall and finish my masters.
The question then became what was I going to be doing from March until August ?
Living in the the good ole US of A is quite expensive (the thoughts of I'm not in Honduras anymore were quite prominent), and even with my parents generosity of letting me live at home for free I needed to make some money to pay for some basic necessities like health insurance, food, gas etc.
Fortunately the perfect job popped up in DeKalb, covering a bilingual first grade maternity leave for a teacher I had previously taught with in the migrant program. So I returned to the school where my Mom had her first teaching job in DeKalb, and my Dad was assistant principal for years, that me and my brother had went to jr. high, and was now a elementary school. It was quite strange how sometimes in life there are so many connections. It was nice to be back with the little ones, and using Spanish. I was even going to able to use this teaching as my practicum for MIIS because I taught an ESL block everyday.
A couple of months into me teaching I got an email from a Peace Corps Response recruiter, saying that he had seen my resume in the system and if I was interested and available in a TESOL response job in Mexico. This of course was at the same time that I was registering for classes and doing financial aide- which was the plan. I had really mixed feelings about it- I was feeling really disillusioned with Peace Corps and how everything in Honduras had gone down. My family and some of my friends thought I was nuts for considering going to serve in another violence ridden county. The job (see description below) was totally out of my comfort zone, and the majority of my experience was nothing like what I would doing.
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On the other hand- Mexico- it was my top choice out of all of Peace Corps countries. It would give me experience working with adults in academia which would definitely diversify my resume. It would help my language skills. Living in Mexico would help me better relate to my past and future students if working in the USA. The majority of my Spanish speaking students have all been Mexican, and having the opportunity to better understand their cultural background was a definite plus.
Another major concern was my masters program- was it even possible to do this job as my 2nd year of service and then come back to MIIS? There were financial aide, scholarship, enrollment status, coursework details to consider. Again MIIS came through and were very supportive of the idea of me serving in Mexico and went to bat for me to make it possible for me to incorporate PC Mexico into my degree program.
So I was free and clear to re-do the life plan once again- if I got the job.
I was offered an invitation to serve. It took some soul searching to decide if it was the right thing to do, but honestly it felt right to accept and try - rather then jumping right back into grad school and finishing up. Honestly I felt like I could give more to service- that I stilled owed the world community a little more of myself. I know it is going to be hard and frustrating- but I also know that I am going to learn a LOT! So I hope that it is the right decision because I leave tomorrow for crying out loud.
Well I have to pack- So my next post will be from Mexico. Thanks for reading!
PS I was in a coffee shop this song came on- and it caught me off guard how much it captured my feelings about why serve- so maybe this will help music video - I am tired of waiting
