Volume 4 Issue 3
Page 11
Brand Name: PEACE CORPS
By:Karen Quinto, MAK 9
If you have ever run a marathon then you
know that the last six miles of that 26.2-mile
race are the hardest to bear. It’s at that point
where you are either going to slow down and
pace yourself to the end, speed up and finish with flourish or just plain give up. It’s that
one millisecond of decision where so many
things are pounding you rather than your
feet continuing to pound the pavement. The
decision though, is all in your head, but once
you get over that one hump, things start to
run a lot smoother or you end up the casualty lying in the road.
rules laid down by Peace Corps Washington that said I could not leave site and still
receive the PCPP funds for my last project.
Choose. There are so many factors that
went into the decision to stay but it wasn’t
even a choice. I would have burned too
many bridges and caused so much betrayal that staying was my only option. I
wasn’t about to give up a project I spent
more than a year raising money for money donated by MY family and friends so that I could get a little piece of mind and
leave site just a little bit earlier.
So then you finish at the end, glad
you did it and made such an accomplishment or thanking every god consecrated that
you didn’t die running 26.2 miles, and who
ever thought of that as some sort of sport
anyways. That is currently what my last
three months feel like. The major hump to
get over was the entire month of September.
Now it feels like I am ending those 6 miles
with the hump behind me and the road
stretching out before me smoother with each
step. I cannot believe I made it and I am
thanking everything that is holy that I didn’t
die on the way, which quite possibly in relation to what happened to me before I was
supposed to run the actual Athens Greece
Marathon seems pretty accurate. (A car hit
me backing up around the corner.)
But that seems rather the beginning
of my hump rather than the end. I suffered
countless nights waiting for the money to
come since the supposed amount hadn’t
come in yet and I already had an agreement with the Mayor in a meeting in which
we sat down and talked about our plans.
The money was already about a month
late. I was forced to move out of my old
apartment because the landlord’s son
wanted to move in and since they thought I
was leaving they weren’t about to tear up
the 30-day notice I sent earlier. So thinking
that the sticky stuff was over with, I applied
for an early COS date and was told I had
unknowingly spent all my vacation days
and there wasn’t a way to leave earlier. Except that I am leaving 5 days early and
while that seems so small in comparison I
felt it was my only lifesaver in the deal.
It seems to me that I haven’t been
paying close attention to the mileage buildup, or more specifically the tapering off of
service. The hump that was supposed to
have been smooth sailing for all the training I
went through, only seemed to magnify all the
things that went wrong. I felt knocked down
by every possible orange cone in the way. I
would like to think that the cone was placed
incorrectly rather than it being my stumbling
along and finding every single one of them.
In the past month I was forced to give
up a position on the PST staff because of
In the ensuing month I wasn’t the
only one changing. My organization has
grown larger and takes on more projects
each year, and my abilities are needed
more and more in the office. The city of
Delcevo is even undergoing a small facelift with foreign money made by Macedonians working abroad building apartment
buildings and a shopping complex. And
about the only thing that sustained me from
picking up my bags and running straight
into a road sign were the small little joys