February 13th, 2016 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | 2 Comments »
I’ve got to see you again
I could almost go there
Just to watch you be seen
I could almost go there
Just to live in a dream– From I’ve Got to See You Again by Norah Jones
Love life. It comes with both joys and challenges. When I first submitted my application for Peace Corps, I completely stopped dating and avoided falling in love with new guys. I didn’t want to deal with a long distance relationship. I didn’t want it to complicate my service. I frequently heard that one of the number one reasons volunteers early terminate their service is because they missed their loved ones at home.
On my first day of service, at staging in Philadelphia, a man came in my life unexpectedly. We sat at the same table and chatted throughout the day. He was very charming and had a very handsome smile. We quickly became very close friends. Our friendship eventually evolved into a relationship.
Even though we are in the same country, we are placed in completely different regions. We’re so far away from each other that it takes three days to get to each other’s posts. We can’t blame Peace Corps for the distance because we both made very specific posts requests. I asked to be placed in the Northwest region so that I could work with a specific disability organization. Alex requested to be in the francophone region so that he could use his French speaking skills. We got our requests and are forever grateful for it. It is really ironic that while I would fall in love with someone who is living in the same country, I would still find myself being in a long distance relationship.
We have no regrets about where we are posted even though we do sometimes say that we wished he was posted in a village in the Northwest just so that we can be close. We still love our job so much. Being far away is perhaps sometimes for the best because it allows us to give all of our energy to our communities and focus on collaborating with the locals on various projects.
But we also say that if we were closer, we could have worked together with the locals on so many projects and make an even bigger impact. It is often frustrating when we come up with great project ideas to do together, often times, the distance impedes us from doing them or makes it harder for us to accomplish them. To quote one of my work partners, “You do great work. But when you and Alex work together, you make an even bigger impact.” We’re often inspired by Bill and Melinda Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Carrie Hessler-Radelet and Steve Radelet, couples who work together to make positive impacts on the world.
While I face challenges at work such as bridging the understanding in cultural differences between the Americans and Cameroonians with the people in my community and meeting their needs to help improve their lives, living far away from the significant other has been posing a much greater challenge than I could imagine. When saying goodbye to him after spending days together, it feels like half of my soul has walked away. Goodbyes are always the worst, and I’m not going to deny that I have cried. The worst is when I have to take off by train and see him disappear from the window. It does really suck being so far away from each other. For a few days after we say goodbye, I quietly mope although it’s probably not so quiet as my work partners will ask me, “So when will you see him again?”
Getting together in Cameroon is not as simple one may realize. We have only 48 days of vacation total for two years. We don’t get work days off on the weekends. We both so strongly believe in maintaining good work ethics that clandoing (traveling without approval) is not an option for us. We both signed up to give our communities two full years of service. Our communities fully expect us to spend a wealth of time working with them, and we cannot let them down. We want to maintain a good balance of our personal life and professional life.
In the meantime, we are doing our best to use our vacation days wisely by spreading them out throughout the service so that we can try to see each other every couple months for at least a few days. We talk to each other on the phone or FaceTime every single night. We use this time to share about our days, happy, sad, exciting and angry moments, and ideas for our work.
And when we are together, the time is very special as we treasure every minute of our moments together. We enjoy every second of laughing, hugging, holding hands, having conversations in person and inspiring each other to make positive contributions to the world.
2 Comments
Varda
February 13, 2016 at 9:21 am
I posted two beautiful hearts and it came out as question marks!! I hope that first comment can be deleted by you! I love following your blog and I am so thrilled with the love of work that you and Alex are doing! I’m even more thrilled with the love that you and Alex share!
Debbi Hook
February 13, 2016 at 10:20 am
Lovely post Rachel. Despite challenges, you are forming a unique and solid base to your relationship. So happy for you.