LG's Excellent PC Adventure

The Peace Corps asks for a commitment from volunteers to serve in a host country for twenty-seven months, three months as Trainees and then two full years as Volunteers. This timeframe is made abundantly clear to each applicant at every step of the joining process. It can take up to a year to complete all the required steps and receive an invitation to join a group being sent to one country or another to begin training. There are lengthy online forms to complete, thick packets of paper forms to fill in, personal interviews to take, medical, dental and vision exams to pass, background checks to undergo, fingerprints, references and resume..all thoroughly checked. Then, from the day you receive your invitation to join, your timetable is very clearly laid out before you. Prior to your arrival in your country, your COS date is set. My group, the B-16s, arrived in Bulgaria on August 9, 2004 and on the calendars we were given on our first day, listing all the significant waypoints of our time here, was our Completion Of Service date, October 10, 2006.

Many volunteers do not stay until their COS date. People leave for a variety of individual and personal reasons. Some people find that they miss home, family and friends more than they ever could have anticipated and they leave. Some people discover that they don't like living in a 'foreign' country as much as they thought they would, especially when the electricity goes out, the water stops and the neighbors don't understand them. Sometimes their jobs don't make a lot of sense or aren't particularly rewarding and people begin to envy their friends at home who are starting 'real' careers or have gone on to grad school. Trainees and volunteers alike become disillusioned, fed up or just plain unhappy and they leave. There are also family emergencies and personal situations at home that force people to leave early. The reasons for leaving, and the decisions to do so, are always personal and people begin leaving at a more or less steady pace almost from day one. Volunteers who leave prior to their COS date are said to ET, or Early Terminate. This decision is voluntary and PC doesn't put pressure on people to stay if they want to go home. Then there are some who want to stay but aren't able to do so. There are people who become either too ill or injured to continue to serve and are medically separated from the PC. The PC term for this situation is MedSep, a tidy bureaucratic label for an unfortunate group. Finally, there are the few volunteers who just don't get it. A very small number of volunteers have to be Administratively Separated, generally for behavior issues related to running afoul of either PC policy, common sense or good judgment. If we weren't volunteers this would be called 'being fired' but we'll just call it ASing.

So, if you don't ET, MS or AS, you COS and get your DOS. Your DOS is your official Description of Service and proclaims to one and all that you served your full two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer with honor. For some people, that's enough to keep them here.

Most volunteers start out with a little trepidation and a lot of enthusiasm and most fully expect to COS. Fifty-nine B-16s got on the plane to fly to Bulgaria on August 8, 2004. There were supposed to be sixty of us but one woman was unable to join us. If I had been asked, at that time, to bet on how many would COS I would have bet that we'd lose no more than six people. This is why I don't gamble!

The B-16s are now officially on the endangered list. At last count there were more California Condors than B-16s! We are down to thirty-one hardy souls but the grapevine is humming and that number will certainly shrink (we could be talking Spotted Owl territory here). All of the people from my training group in Saedinenie are still here and both Lindsay and Sara have extended to stay a third year. Brian & Kate will stay for an additional month or so to help train the new arrivals and I will COS on October 10th and become the first of the Saedinenie's to leave.

There is no easy way to categorize the people who have left early or to categorize those who have stayed for that matter. Age, gender, race and creed are equally represented in both groups, as are intelligence, humor, and character. Most of those who have left have probably done the right thing for themselves; while those of us who are staying have found ways to make this a meaningful experience in our lives. It is, however, apparent that the Peace Corps is not for everyone. If you're considering joining, it might be worthwhile to try to talk to a couple of people who left early just to get their perspective. Personally, I think this has been a terrific experience and I fully intend to take advantage of every minute of it.

Among the advantages offered is private language tutoring, however, PC policy dictates that my language lessons must end on July 10th. I suppose that after two years of lessons, they feel that there's no point in throwing good money after bad and that I won't learn enough in my last three months to make the expenditure worth while. I can only hope that my tutor, Darina Murteva, can maintain her perfect record of 'never saying a single thing the same way twice' until July. While this isn't necessarily helpful when you're trying to learn a language, it is a very impressive feat when extended to twenty-four consecutive months. It's a bit like Joe Dimaggio's fifty-six game hitting streak, no tutor to come will ever approach Darina's capacity as a Bulgarian thesaurus. I've become very comfortable with our routine. Twice a week she comes to my apartment and, while I drink my coffee, she talks to me in very formal and proper (some might say ancient and archaic) Bulgarian. Periodically I'll try to get a word in, but usually it's easier on both of us if she does all the talking. I nod and make "umm, uh-huh and oh" noises until the hour is up. I truly believe that her Bulgarian is improving as a result of our sessions and I feel really good about that. Yesterday she was talking about something or other and switched to English halfway through. For a minute I thought I had finally begun to understand Bulgarian because I knew what she was saying!

The grapevine or rumor mill among volunteers is well oiled and running with its usual efficient lack of accuracy. It's interesting to note that the rumors have evolved over time from "who is sleeping with whom" to "who is leaving this week" to "PC is going to put a whole new set of rules in place to make us unhappy". Rumors have high entertainment value especially when they take on an air of bombast and outrage. Currently, people are dithering over an announcement of probable policy changes within PC Bulgaria. So far, no specific changes have been made but rumors of draconian new rules have created pockets of mumbled rebellion. In my opinion, PC policy in Bulgaria is designed to keep us safe, assist us in our work and our communities and support us during our stay here. My guess is that the new policies will be designed to improve on that level of support. If not, I suppose I'll take to the barricades and shout down the Man (shout the Man down?).

My apartment reminds me of a big leafy tree. When I arrived in October 2004, it was in the full blush of its Summer with healthy green leaves and strong solid roots. Time, however, has been unkind to my apartment and it has now entered the Fall of its existence. Like leaves turning brown and falling, bits and pieces of my apartment have begun to disintegrate little by little. I have one shower, two toilets and three sinks, none of which can be turned completely off at this time. It's like living in a rainforest. Above my entryway door is a panel of "bushoni" or fuses. These burn out with methodical precision and need to be replaced about once a month. My landlord Hristo simply takes them apart, braids some new wire into them and screws them back into the panel. Lately, they've been popping with even greater frequency and Hristo has now given me a little chart showing me which appliances cannot be operated simultaneously. The water heater can't be used when anything else is on. The radiator can't be used if the tv or stove are being used. The washing machine can only be run when all the lights are turned off and the refrigerator is unplugged. The stove has three hotplate burners and an oven, but only two of any combination can be on at a given time. Ahhh, now I get it, no wonder I've been blowing all those fuses. I have this nasty American habit of keeping my fridge plugged in when the lights are on.

So, if I'm the last B-16 left in Bulgaria, I'll turn out the lights when I leave...or just plug in the refrigerator and turn on the tv.