Maggie

9.6.10



Today one of my favorite trainees and closest friends here, Maggie, started the process to go home. She looked happier than I’ve ever seen her here, and she finally started laughing again (she got stressed out a couple of weeks ago and never really seemed to rebound)… so while I’m really sad for me, I’m really happy that she’s making the right choice for her.



I don’t want to speak for her (Mags, if you read this, feel free to argue in the comments), but I think there were a lot of things that added up and made her life au Benin not awesome – she missed her family and boyfriend a bajillion times more than she expected to, and to be honest, Peace Corps didn’t do a great job with setting up her post situation. In the end, it came down to whether or not the work she would be doing here was worth the sacrifice of living so far away from her people, and PC just wasn’t right for her. I fully expect her to save the world via AmeriCorps or Doctors Without Borders or something in the future. Just not right here and right now.



I’m really excited for her. For me, not so much. Realizing how easy it is to get home was kind of difficult to forget – you just say you want to go home, go through a bunch of exit interviews, and PC buys a ticket home. And right now I’m so, SO jealous that she’ll be eating hamburgers, hugging her sister and not arguing prices every three seconds… and PC hasn’t delivered our mail in a week and a half, so I’m missing yall even more lately… I don’t know. I’m determined to stick it out here, but seeing her head back to the States without me in tow is rough.



Before she left, we (Jenny, Elyse and I) made her promise several things. First, she can’t get married until we get back, because we want to wear ridiculous African tissu dresses to the reception. Second, she has to mail us some seriously kickass letters. And third, she has to hug America for us. Yes, the entire country.



Maggie (in case you manage to figure out how a computer works and/or locate the internet sometime soon), I’m going to miss you and your laugh like crazy, woman. You’ve been one of my favorites here since the beginning, and every time I hear “sha-la-la-la-la-la-my-oh-my” you’ll be the first thing that jumps to mind. Drink a margarita and watch some trashy TV for me, k?