It happens when one least expects it. Almost simultaneous with the moment when one finally feels comfortable tallying down the days remaining and grows ever more appreciative of the dwindling number of times one has to wear that unflattering, sweat-inducing, khaki uniform to school. When one can imagine nothing more delightful than to step on the first of several planes back to one’s Home of Record. Then without warning, an epiphany 2 years in the making shakes the body to the core: in some inexplicable way, I belonged here. Maybe not forever and maybe not in the same capacity I initially anticipated when filling out the Peace Corps application so long ago. But I was meant to be in this place at this time and live through these struggles so that I could one day appreciate how beautiful and unpredictable this experience truly is.
Exhausted by Indonesia, I recently succumbed to the daily countdown that so many of my PC colleagues have been employing for months now. 52 days or the equivalent of 10 more times wearing that unpleasant khaki teaching attire, Alhamdulillah!
My mind was already home, or, at the very least, on my post COS travel plans. I had bought my ticket to Phuket, Thailand and was not only mentally, but physically, starting to pack up my room and organize the hodgepodge of odds and ends I’ve accumulated over the last 2 years. Swaths of batik fabric, an assortment of personalized keepsakes from students, matching mugs with my host family’s faces prominently displayed…each memento prompting a buried flashback from my time here. I was reflective, but not overly sentimental about leaving. I felt ready to abscond from this Indonesian life in which I could never really fit in, skipping the awkward goodbyes and partition of my material possessions.
But then something unanticipated happened.
It happened at nearly the exact moment when I felt irrevocably and completely comfortable with the bearable amount of time I had left at site. That’s when feelings of abandonment slipped past my seemingly callous exterior and infiltrated deep within. Feelings of me abandoning my students. Of me abandoning my newfound friends. Of me abandoning my teachers. Of me abandoning my host siblings. Of me abandoning the kids. All within a single day. Only 52 days.
It first happened in the moment when I felt too tired to go to English Kids Camp and lethargically strolled in late with profound feelings of apathy towards teaching radiating through my body. But I threw on a smile and nonchalantly made my way to the back of the room so I could passively observe my high school students doing, as always, an excellent job captivating and stimulating their pupils’ minds. That apathy was all at once supplanted by complete and utter pride as I reflected on how much they’ve grown in such a short time. 52 days or 7 more English Club meetings.
It happened again in the moment when three of my third and fourth graders bashfully approached me with youthfully wrapped packages in hand; tiny parcels for Ms. Maggie ‘just because’. A few flamboyant hair accessories and one seashell broach later, I was full of melancholy sentiment as I thought about saying goodbye to these little prodigies. 52 days or 4 more times with my English Camp kids.
Walking home from the camp, it happened yet again in the moment when my closest friend/ neighborhood head/ community counterpart/ bike-riding buddy/ co-founder of our English Kids Camp/ Indonesian sister casually mentioned that we haven’t hung out in sooo long…we hadn’t seen each other since Monday! Days get busy and people fade in and out of each others’ lives, but best friends are best friends. I never thought I’d have a best friend here with whom I’d feel like 7 days was ‘sooo long to be apart’. And as I was selfishly counting down the days until I could finally leave, I realized that that’s the same number of days I have left with my close friend who will soon be oceans away. 52 days or 6 more adventurous bike rides together.
It happened once more in the moment when, on that same walk home, my 5-year old neighbor Bunga ran up and breathlessly grabbed my hand, blissfully and uncontrollably giggling, in hopes that we could navigate our way through the towering sugar cane fields in pursuit of the other neighborhood youngsters. How do you explain to someone so young why you have to leave presumably forever? 52 days or 40 more walks home from school.
The feelings of bittersweetness intensify as days pass by. Sure I have moments when I can’t wait to be back in the land of toasted bagels and a heterogeneous community into which I can blend. But there are also those rare moments when my heart sinks at the thought of disserting my students and Indonesian colleagues so that I can greedily take the next life step.
Just when I was starting to distance myself, to organize my belongings and finalize my post COS travel itinerary, and to not feel accountable for the seemingly never-ending 52 days left in country, I realized that I only have 52 more days and I need to make the most of those limited 1248 hours.
