A dream is ending...

5/29 I don't remember the last time I was this mad. So angry, it wells up inside me and makes me want to hit, break, smash, crush everything within reach. The kind of enraged that gets me to scream – full body screaming that echoes off buildings two hundred yards away – for the first time in years. The kind of PISSED that has me staring down dogs, returning yells for their barks as I walk home, and barely seeing the humor and foolishness of it.

I found out, last night, Peace Corps wants to close Woleai, pull the volunteers and move us closer in, move us to Ulithi. I was livid but controlled the anger enough to not smash the bench that was calling out to me, not to break that window, hurl that stool, chuck my bottle. But I wanted to, real bad.

Something happened while I was out there this last stretch, something that's made them decide to shut us down. New staff has been hired for Peace Corps Micronesia, a new US ambassador to the FSM came on the job, and a 'Safety and Security' team came out to Yap. One of these things is directly leading to this absolute fucking travesty.

It's bullshit, plain and simple. How can Woleai just close like this? What is the reasoning? What has changed about the situation for Woleai? Nothing. Not that I can see. The plane should NOT be an issue, because we were never relying on it in the first place. What the fuck?

I want to finish my service; I want to finish it in Woleai. I've just spent six and a half months building relationships, figuring out my job, working on the language, making a life! GODDAMN IT! This is such fucking horse-shit. You should see my mental images of tearing this office apart right now.


6/7 So, wheels have been turning and we’ve heard the final verdict: Woleai is closed. There is only the smallest glimmer of hope (my boss said it’d be a miracle) to keep us in Woleai. The airport would need to be cleared by PMA (local airline) for emergency flights. Anyhow, I get to go back there for the rest of the summer, but after that, I’m moving somewhere new. It’s still really tearing me up, but I’ve come to terms with the whole situation – a bit. It helps immensely that Peace Corps has worked with us, is giving us options and not pulling us immediately. If I couldn’t even go back at all… oh boy, that’d be bad.

We found out last Wednesday that the decision had already been made, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. That was a HARD day. I handled myself pretty well in the meeting (only one angry comment), but after that… well, it wasn’t quite as impressive. I got really mad. Anger just washed over me once the meeting was finished. Went from shell shocked and sad to madder than hell. Didn’t cool off till the next morning.

Then we had our in-service training workshops, which were pretty hazy for me. Couldn’t really focus much. It’s just felt like my insides are twisting tighter and tighter, building up a knot of tension in my chest. Not my favorite feeling of all time.

During IST, I talked more with my Peace Corps supervisor people and I’ve got my options in front of me. Surprisingly, but much appreciated, it sounds like I get a lot of say in the transfer process. There are a number of sites available but I’ve narrowed mine choices down to two.

First option: there’s a tiny island in the Ulithi Atoll of Yap called Asor. The language is very similar to Woleaian, the culture as well, and I think I’d still get to wear a thu. Plus, I could take the ship out from time to time and see the folks in Woleai. Second option: I was told about a site in the outer islands of Chuuk—the next state to the east in the FSM. The only information I really have about it is that it’s an outer island (the only kind I want to work on) and that it hasn’t had a volunteer in a LONG time, if ever. That’s surprisingly compelling. I’m really hoping to hear more about both sites and make my decision this week.

This has been unbelievably difficult—most difficult thing I’ve had to deal with since my first broken heart. Oddly, this—being removed from Woleai—is very much like a repeat performance of my heart breaking. Really, that’s exactly what it is, another broken heart, but this time, my heart breaks more for the people of Woleai who so desperately want Peace Corps in their islands. There’s no way to adequately describe 600 plus people showing such depth of appreciation of, care for and excitement about visitors coming to live and work on their island. You have to live it to understand. So, I think this heart break is worse than those that came before.

It’s a mark of an incredibly privileged person that a broken heart can be counted as the worst experience in his life. That perspective came to me (over time) the first go around, and it’s come again, which really helps. I can’t claim personal processing for the cause, though. It was a speech I read online. A gal I went to high school and college with (for one year a piece) just gave the commencement speech to our old high school, and a friend who had attended told me to check it out. Reading that just brought rushing back to me how horrible injustice can be and that this situation is a bit light on that scale. It still sucks, but I’m feeling a lot better about things now.

All the same, it’s going to rip me to pieces when I have to tell my host mom that I’m leaving.