Week 101: Close of Service Conference

The time has come for my Close of Service Conference (COS). I have been in Botswana with my fellow Bots 14 intake group since August 2013, we arrived at 61 and 42 of us have made it to our COS conference. I am told that this is considered high or on par with other Peace Corps Countries retention rates. I am proud to have made it this far but support all of my friends and peers who have left for various reasons. I applied to Peace Corps on a whim three years ago one Saturday as I avoided writing a paper for one of my then classes. It was early in my final year at University and I was stressed about what my next step would be. Having been involved in community based social issues theater projects, I felt that solutions needed to come from the community itself and I believed that as a peace corps volunteer I would become a part of what ever community I was living and serving in. Oh how I could not have been more wrong. After two years I am still an outsider and know that after twenty more years I will remain an outsider, however, I am loved and respected and I am grateful for the community of Moshana and the people who patiently shared their culture and way of life. I am clear that it is time for me to move on to my next chapter however; I will miss the friends I have made and the families that took me in as one of their own.