This past month we lost 2 more Volunteers from the original 38 who arrived March of last year. This brings the total number of Volunteers in Group 81 down to 27. That leaves about 70% of us left, with about 40% of our service left to go. I recently read that on average 1/3 of PCVs will not finish their service.
Every PCV has said it over and over, “Peace Corps is hard.” This can be seen in the 2/3 of applicants who will not be placed/accepted, by the 1/3 of PCVs who don’t finish their service, and in recognizing the caliber of people who apply to PC in the first place.
We prepared for this. We went through months and months (sometimes years and years) of the application process. We packed up our things. Left good jobs. Left our homes. Said good bye to friends, families, loved ones. We set aside our American lives for 27 months to embark on this PC journey…
I don’t know anybody who joined PC, and thought, “Well, I’ll see how this goes.” Or “I guess I’ll try this for a little while.” They came to finish, and I’m reminded of this energy as Jamaica just received another set of 30 PCTs last week.
It’s always hard to lose other Volunteers. And although we have yet to be in a position where we needed to seriously assess whether we should stay or go, I surely do not envy those who have had to make the difficult choice to go.
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