Departing for an adventure such as this, is a journey within itself. Everywhere I go, my topic of conversation somehow ends up being about my choice to go into the Peace Corps. I find mixed emotion about this. Some are shocked, most excited, but for me....it's overwhelming. It seems as if Peace Corps has taken over my life months before I have even left for service. People ask me questions about what I will be doing while I am in Kenya, they ask me what my living situation will be like, but most of all I always find myself facing the inevitable question of "why?" So here is my attempt at answering that once and for all.
And in the end, my answer is one of cliché....put simply, I want to help people.
My whole life I have found myself dedicating my time to things I believed in...sometimes a little too passionately. I went through a stage where I was very political, working on the John Kerry campaign and interning for Senator Barbara Boxer. I went through a stage where I was a "feminist". I read all the pro-fem novels, joined Emily's List, and even went as far to buy a shirt that said "This is what a feminist looks like" (sufficient to say I only wore it once after being made fun of haha). I went through a stage where I was a "wanna-be-Jew", delving into Hillel because it provided an outlet for activism, even going as far to travel to D.C. with them to lobby on Capital Hill about current Jewish issues (I'm a raised Catholic by the way). I went through a stage where I was fired up about reproductive freedom and comprehensive sexual education, starting a group called SYRF (Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom), lobbying for Planned Parenthood and advocating the Pro-Choice movement. And my most recent stage has been Human Rights, particularly within the HIV/AIDS arena working with San Francisco Aids Foundation, Kiva, and Amnesty International.
Some might say I'm a liberal, a hippy, a flower child, but honestly, none of my motives lay beneath these labels.
For those who do not know where I come from, I like to call myself of "mixed-class" (sorta like mixed blood, but instead of being about race, mixed class is about your economic level). I simultaneously grew up in what most would call the American dream among the beautiful and peaceful suburbs, but at the same time seeing poverty first hand. My father working hard to give me the chance for a good education in a top notch neighborhood, while my mother struggling to put food on the table. One day I would be riding in my friend's BMW, the next visiting my mom in a homeless shelter. Sometimes it made it difficult to connect with my wealthier friends because I didn't want them to know about my situation. Finding my mom living next to a freeway under a tarp was a difficult circumstance to explain to my friends whose biggest problems were that they had to share a bathroom with their brother. While I was trying to comprehend living with a mother with schizophrenia, they were worried about getting asked to the dance.
These days, however, I am more then ever open about where I come from and it has healed me to talk openly about it. I know that it made me stronger, it made me who I am, and most importantly, it has led me to the decision to make the biggest commitment of my life, the Peace Corps. By seeing and experiencing poverty first hand, I've come to know that I want to help people who are not as fortunate as I am. My mother and I are closer then ever now and she gets government assistance to live a comfortable life. In short, I totally think of myself of having the "happy ending". So now, I want to help others get to that chapter.
I'm excited for my journey. I'm excited to see the world, learn a language, live fully, breath clearly. But most of all I'm excited to use my life experience to have a journey through eyes no one else will ever be able to. This journey is solely my own. I can't wait to meet the people in Kenya and hopefully touch their hearts while they in turn touch mine.
So my "why" really is simple. I want to live my life for the good of human kind. I want to remember what makes us all the same in the end, that we are each people with needs, emotions, strengths, weaknesses...and because laughter is the same in every language.
