COS

I’m within two weeks of leaving site, three weeks of leaving Peace Corps and Mongolia. At times, my chest is tight. My chin quivers, unexpectedly, and my throat doesn’t swallow easily.

Though we arrived en masse to Mongolia, Close of Service marks the last time my cohort, the M23s, will have been together. Though a handful will stay for a third year, the majority will depart the country in staggered waves, some going directly home while others travel our way back. Some of us will keep in touch. Some of us will want to keep in touch but will, perhaps inevitably, drift apart. And some of us may move on to the next phase of life without looking back. Though, I believe that even this group will hold a special place in their hearts for those who were a part of this Peace Corps/Mongolia experience.

The COS Conference we had in May was necessary for disseminating information we needed to know in order “to leave Peace Corps and to leave Mongolia.” One PCV said it required more paperwork to get out than to get in. Practical things were covered, such as closing our bank accounts, deactivating our visa, and post-PC healthcare options; helpful things such as networking and resume tips; cautionary things such as “readjustment” to life in America; and the delicate, easily overlooked topic of saying goodbye to our communities was addressed.

There was a panel of mostly RPCVs assembled for us to ask our life-after-Peace Corps questions. One man, now working at the American Embassy in UB, was an M2, the second group of Volunteers in Mongolia. We gave him a round of applause in recognition of how different, how more difficult, it must have been for him. One woman, who finished service ~10 years ago, had never stopped improving her Mongolian language and is now a document translator based in Mongolia. Another woman, a recent RPCV, is now at PCHQ in DC. I’m within three weeks of leaving Peace Corps, so I am within three weeks of being unemployed. Where on earth will I be a year from now? What will I be doing? It’s still too soon for me to think about.

During our evenings at the conference there were organized group activities (trivia, dance, bananagrams) and intimate groupings that formed organically. On the last day, we had lunch with the US Ambassador to Mongolia. We had many photos taken, including with our PST groups. My personal highlight: our beloved Safety and Security Manager sang us out while playing “Country Roads” on guitar. After our two years of trying to integrate into the Mongolian culture, it was super meaningful to have a Mongolian take on an American folk song. This cherished memory is heavy on my heart if I think about it too long, so I’d better move on.

Our last night in UB, many of us gathered for an unofficial wedding ceremony for my PST site-mate and our language teacher. They’ll do it for real in the States, and I plan to be there, but I was glad they thought to do something here while so many of us were together. Afterward, we danced in the club until closing time. As the night wore on, more and more goodbyes were said during a tight embrace. The honesty, the raw emotion, the respect were all palpable. I looked around the crowded room and saw it time and time again, history being acknowledged with a nod or a grin, private moments unfolding around me, thinking “I need to start my own goodbyes, but I’m not ready.” Ready or not, they came to me.

I’m lucky to have had some solid groups in my past which gave me a support network at the time, life-long friends since, and a shared identity that allows us to pick up where we left off no matter the time that has passed: my band friends from high school (even jr. high), my fellow cast members from “images: Theater for Young Hearts and Minds” (a peer education group), my one college roommate (the one person I’m in touch with 15 years later), colleagues from my two hospital jobs who were more than mere co-workers.

To this esteemed collection of groups, I add my Peace Corps family. This includes the other M23s, of course, and the M21s, M22s, M24s and M25s I’ve gotten to know. I hope it goes without saying that my host family, my CP, and our PC staff, American and Mongolian, are in there too. But it also includes the Peace Corps/Mongolia PCVs before and after, nearly all of whom I will never meet, and the Peace Corps Volunteers from any other country ever. Why? Because this shared experience is that meaningful to me. There’s a knowingness, a tacit understanding, that can’t be captured in a blog. And just as I’ve had to say goodbye to being a member of the other groups in my life, but never said goodbye to the people, so, too, must I say goodbye to being a PCV. What’s really neat, though, is that I move from being a PCV to an RPCV, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. And that’s something I’ll be forever.