I Remember

The new training group is here and PST is in full swing. It's been a weird experience seeing so many people viewing Guinea for the first time. I see myself in all of them and remember how, not too long ago, I was the wide eyed trainee stepping off a comfortable climate controlled airplane to be hit with the muggy heat of the rainy season.

I remember barely saying a word on the drive from the airport as I stared out at the streets littered with trash and people. I remember watching the ocean over the palm trees from the roof of the Peace Corps compound and thinking I had landed in a beautiful tropical paradise. I also remember my first trip to the market where I changed that opinion as I waded through rivers of sewage and tried to navigate my way through the labyrinth of unfamiliar sights and smells.

I remember constantly not understanding the people around me. I remember when I was still surprised that people would chant "White Person!" as I walked by. I remember not knowing how to take a bath with a bucket. I remember not knowing how to use a latrine. I remember thinking that toh was one of the worst foods imaginable, and then I remember getting used to eating it every day.

I remember learning that even if the person you're talking to is a complete stranger you need to start every conversation with them by asking about their family. I remember the first time I got offended when a stranger didn't ask about mine.

I remember learning to slow down. I remember realizing that tea is drunk for the two hour chat that comes with it. I remember walks down the windy paths of my village where people I have never met call me by name and invite me to dinner.

I remember all this and more as I see the new volunteers experience it for the first time and I realize that this is really what Peace Corps is about. We come here to a new world and we find it full of strangeness and unfamiliarity. At first we're lost and we don't feel like we have a compass to find our way. But little by little we change the way we see our new world, and in the process we change the way we see ourselves. By the end, the strangeness has peeled away and all that's left is a place we call home.

I don't remember when Guinea became my home, but somewhere along the way it did.