WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009 - (Page 40)

creature comforts— well, that I wasn’t so sure about. But I knew that eventually I’d have to poop or get out of the latrine. The I’ll-bejoining-the-Peace-Corps-someday line was just going to seem pathetic if I was still muttering it while pregnant with my third child and toting the other two around in my Chevy Suburban. But now it was two years since my college graduation. I was still living in Oneonta and still dating the sweetheart who was supposed to be my last college fling. He and I had a wonderful relationship, but as much as I loved him, for a reason I just couldn’t put my finger on, I knew he wasn’t THE ONE. Just as I knew that I had to get out of Oneonta in order to get on with my life. It was join the Peace Corps or go to law school. And when faced with two equal options—one being what would be expected of a nice Jewish girl and the other being somewhat outrageous—well, for some reason, I always choose the one that would make my Orthodox Jewish grandmother roll over in her grave. It had taken me nearly a month to fill out the Peace Corps application. I was surprised by how thoroughly they investigate their applicants. I was volunteering to go to some godawful country, live in a shack, and dig latrines for world peace. Obviously, I was insane. Wasn’t that what they were looking for? But apparently they wanted their recruits to be insane and well qualified at the same time! We were required to have a college degree or be highly skilled, be in excellent health, have no potentially troublesome wisdom teeth, nor any romantic or financial entanglements. I was asked to list all the courses I’d taken and what grades I’d received. I hoped to make up for my barely B average with my interest in all things international, as documented by my three consecutive semesters banging on coconut husk bongos in Javanese Gamelan class. I assumed that I was healthy enough to live in less developed countries, because at that time, I had not 0 Summer 2009 yet ruined my health by years of living in less developed countries. Since my wisdom teeth had never even come in, I figured that would pose no problem. It was only the question about romantic entanglements that worried me, since The Oneonta Sweetheart and I were still entangled at the time. The fact that I had a boyfriend was not something I wanted to lie about, since it clearly stated that lying would lead to immediate disqualification and possible prosecution. Besides, I had listed the Sweetheart as one of my half-dozen references. He told them nice things about me and I told them I’d break up with him to go into the Peace Corps. Good enough, I guess, because I was invited for an interview. I had long imagined that joining the Peace Corps would be like being ushered into a fraternity of likeminded peaceniks. I was sure that my history as a college radical and my present do-gooder job would grant me automatic entry into their club. I figured as soon as they heard about me, we’d all be holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” But there was no hand-holding when John had called and insisted I come to New York City for an interview. “I can’t possibly come to New York City. I work for a rape crisis center, traveling around upstate New York teaching elementary school kids about sexual assault prevention.” Hadn’t this guy read my résumé? “You know, ‘good touch–bad touch,’ ‘say no, then go, then tell’?” The silence on the other end was not encouraging. “Anyway, it’s a really tight schedule. I have to cover forty different schools and we are scheduled right through the end of the year. So if I miss one or two days, the whole schedule is thrown off.” I didn’t bother to add the part about my having to waitress at night so I could afford to keep my lowpaying, do-gooder day job. “Well, then, I’ll assume you are not all that interested in joining the Peace Corps,” said John, in his clipped Boston accent. Did this guy even know “Kumbaya”? We reached a compromise when John offered to give me the last interview on an upcoming recruitment day at the University at Albany. For the entire ninety-minute drive there, I kept reminding myself that I didn’t need to like my recruiter. I simply needed to get past him in order to get into the Peace Corps. But now, driving home, remembering the excitement in his voice as he talked about his little village in Burkina Faso and recalling how good my hand felt in his, I realized that I liked him very much. Now I wondered if I would have to actually go into the Peace Corps in order to get the recruiter. Answering machine, beep: Hi, Mom. I’m calling to fill you in on my Peace Corps interview. It lasted for two hours, and, well, I’m still not sure about going off to live in the jungle. But I am definitely going to marry my recruiter! Copyright © 2009 by Eve Brown-Waite From the book FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA by Eve Brown-Waite ((Ecuador 88-89), published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009

WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009
Contents
More Peace Corps Campaign: Better and Bolder!
Africa Rural Connect
Readers Write
You Too Can Be Bill Gates
Taking Peace Corps Back into the Field
Come for the Information, Stay for the Dancing
A “Green” Community Rising
Microfinance Pioneer Receives 2009 Shriver Award
The Colombia Project
A Voice for the Unheard
Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Microfinance Podcasts
Selected Microfinance Resources
Bicycle! Bamenda! Orange!
Luck and Fame
A Step in the Right Direction
Bringing What She Loves
Letter from Botswana: First Tongues of the Kalahari
Letter from Tanzania: Homo Sapien in Africa
In the Beginning (There Was John)
The Peace Corps Community Making a Difference
Community News
Advertiser Index

WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009

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