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Health & Fitness

Anywhere But Home

Before I'd questioned whether I could go to Africa, now I didn't want to leave! But life had other plans.

In the immediate months before I left for Kenya with Peace Corps I considered whether I was doing the right thing. I longed to do something bigger with my life, but had reservations about returning to sub-Saharan Africa where I’d already spent several months, and about Peace Corps itself in light of the news and information I'd been hearing. I expressed my concerns in an article for Patch, titled “.” 

But as I neared the end of my pre-service training, that all changed. I wanted to stay. I wanted it more than anything I wanted in a very long time.

Sure, I missed petting my dog (or any dog without worrying about rabies), taking a walk after 6 pm without breaking curfew, eating something other than the daily-repeat-compote of boiled potatoes, porridge, and beans. I missed being able to get a glass of water whenever I wanted. Sometimes my longing for the comforts and conveniences of home was downright painful. But my resolve to stay in Kenya with Peace Corps was greater.

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I dreamed of home a lot, at least when I was able to sleep soundly enough to reach the dream stage. (Usually I awoke every few hours to find rats making mischief in my bedroom. Then I’d switch on the head-lamp I took to wearing to bed, jam my mosquito net further into the bed frame, pull my sleeping bag up over my head, and close my eyes, trying not to think of skin penetrating parasites, worms coming out of various orifices and other nightmarish stuff we’d learned that week from the Medical staff). Still, I wanted to stay. 

Because in the 18 months long run up to this journey I had other dreams and hopes of what I might accomplish both as a small business adviser in Kenya and a woman of a certain age looking to re-invent herself. (Again.) So I would sometimes fast forward - one, two years - and envision what my life might look like totally immersed in this new culture: helping dairy farmers transport their milk to the factory without spillage or spoiling along the rain-rutted roads, advising fish farmers on better ways to market their tilapia to tribesmen who likened fish to snakes, and teaching business English to the country’s enterprising youth (in Kenya, anyone 18 to 35 years old) at the University. I conjured up images of me living among the Kalenjin people in my little cottage in Kip Karen alongside other international NGOs and non-profits, visiting Uganda, only a few hours to the east, and Lake Victoria where some of the other Peace Corps volunteers were placed. 

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Back home surrounded by wealth and privilege in the Pacific Palisades, I’d found myself struggling to stay afloat financially and quiet the nagging thoughts that at 50-something I’d never work or love again. Peace Corps Kenya gave me hope that at the very least, after 27 months of simple living - and living simply – I might return home more grateful for what I had, and accepting of what I didn’t. That maybe I would return home more, well... peaceful.

I’d met volunteers who were nearing completion of their two year service or extending their service for yet another year, and despite their youth they seemed to have a level of serenity, maturity, acceptance, whatever, that I, though older and well-traveled, didn’t. Whatever they had, I wanted some.  If I could help others, and help myself in return, all the better. And I vowed not to return home without trying.

Suddenly mistreatment at the hands of Peace Corps officials, difficult living conditions, missing home - none of those mattered.  Reaching peaceful became my goal. And I would go anywhere to get it – to Kip Karen, Eldoret, another site; whereever they wanted to place me, I didn’t care.  Anywhere but home. 

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