features: spring 2013 nsformed you?
Peace Corps is a life changing experience because you start off as one person, but you end up as two. Everything is from scratch. We are like 30-40 tiny babies when we exit the plane and BAM! We are in a new culture learning a new language, dealing with the same learning curve that babies deal with. It is refreshing and scary. We are refreshed and scared at the same time. Then we mature and eventually come to an adult-like understanding of our surroundings. After that we are two people in one body, and we are better for it.
Stephen Robinson
now
then
“ Oh Carly, you look so different,” they said.“ You’ ve changed so much,” they said. Depending on how I feel, I have two responses to this statement. If I don’ t feel like explaining myself, I just smile and thank the person. Other times, I’ ll take their statement as a backhanded compliment, and follow it up with something like,“ When I joined Peace Corps I thought I would be working as an English teacher in a village, not entering a beauty contest as a plus size American super model on the European scene. Obviously, I was wrong, so yeah I traded in my Pre-Service Training sweatpants for some lipstick and high heels.
Does this make me a traitor? Or maybe a sell out? No, because I used to dress up and go out in America too, just not as often. I didn’ t come armed with all of the preparatory tools for such occasions because, who knew where I would end up. It was much more practical to bring neutral clothes that I could wear for a wedding, work, for coffee, and to sleep in, as
Carly Jerome
opposed to bringing only prom dresses and ending up assigned to work at a school in the middle of nowhere. Thank God I didn’ t have to spend too much money on getting my groove back, because hair extensions and tooth rhinestones aren’ t that expensive in Macedonia.
Back home in the Midwest, if I went out wearing hot pink lipstick and heels, I would risk being called a woman who engages in risqué behavior. Now I can dress up, go out, and don’ t have to worry about people referring to me as a lady of the night. If anything, my time in Macedonia has allowed me to be the girlygirl I am, without having to explain myself or defend my integrity. I am more confident and comfortable with the person I am. Naturally, I would have to move to an Albanian Muslim village in Eastern Europe to educate the youth of Macedonia, to learn this.
Carly Jerome
Spring 2013 – 43