The Process (Written 8/29/07)

When I arrived in Samoa 2 years ago, we (the Group 75 trainees) received a map which had the names of all the volunteers who were currently stationed in Samoa. When I came to Chanel College in December of 2005, I placed the map on my wall and used it as sort of a countdown clock for my time in Samoa. I said to myself 'When this map is all marked out, that means its time to go' and at the time that felt like such a far off prospect. But as the weeks turned into months and the months turned into a year and a half, the names on the list slowly got marked out for various reasons: completion of service, administration separation (i.e. fired from Peace Corps), early termination and medical separation – basically the whole gamut of reasons you could leave Peace Corps service. Well of one my best friends from the group that was sworn in the same year as us (2005 / Group 74), Robyn, will be leaving tomorrow afternoon because she has successfully completed her two years. With her departure, that leaves only one more member of Group 74 in country (Mark) but since he's leaving in November/December (he extended his service for a few months) Robyn is the last official member of Group 74 to leave before Group 75 (my group) becomes the "senior" group in Peace Corps Samoa.

Which means the process of leaving Samoa begins. While a few members of Group 75 are volunteering for the SPG (Bryan, John, Dianne) a lot of us are just using this time to enjoy Samoa a bit because this is our last break before school starts up again and we start barreling towards our various COS dates. It's funny how the various obstacles that presented themselves when trying to apply to Peace Corps – the paperwork, the medical stuff, making sure everything is in order – still applies in the process of going back to the states. The main difference between coming and going that I have always found interesting is that you arrive in country with such revelry and fanfare, but you leave post with just you and your bags around you – Peace Corps doesn't throw you a big going away party. Robyn will be leaving in the middle of the afternoon, which is a much better time to leave (she's going to American Samoa), but for the majority of volunteers who leave Peace Corps they do so under the cover of dark (the Air New Zealand flight to LA leaves at 12:45am every Tuesday morning). So you literally arrive with a bang and leave with a whisper. But saying goodbye to a friend that you have known for two years is definitely hard and from this point forward it doesn't get any easier. Once the games are out of the way, we will have a little over 2 months left in our service before we head for home and the reality of what that entails (getting ourselves organized, spending as much time with our friends here as possible, etc) is starting to hit home.

As for an SPG update, I was over at Paul/Viv's for bible study and was able to watch a bit of the weightlifting and swimming on television. Samoa won 9 gold medals in weightlifting thanks to 3 people in one family. Samoa also got a bronze in the 400m swimming relay I watched on TV and it was quite amazing to see one swimmer who was so good that she had half a pool lap on the next competitor. Also, while I was watching the swimming competition I saw a few Peace Corps Volunteers: Stephanie, Jordan, Sarah Swanson, Jame (Group 76), Dianne (Group 75) and Ema (Group 77) who were officials for the swimming. Peace Corps volunteers are just all over the place for these games! L8r.