Almost a month in Fiji...None to go...

So a rather unexpected update in the ongoing saga that is my life: I have decided to early terminate from Peace Corps.

So I realize that this probably shocks the vast majority of you. I have decided that this is the best decision for me because after being in Fiji almost a month I have come to realize that I have outgrown PC, so to speak. I find myself wishing that I were living back in the states (or at least on the American continent) closer to family and friends with a more settled life. This is not to say that Fiji was not amazing or the people great. Everything in Fiji was as good as I had hoped, but I feel that I will be happier at home (or closer to it). Making the decision to re-enroll in PC after being evacuated from Bolivia was, at the time, the right decision; however, after spending 6 months waiting to leave for Fiji, something in me changed that I did not realize until after my first month: that I think it is time for me to look beyond being a PC Volunteer because that is no longer what makes me happiest. Having done PC before, I am more aware of the fact that a good volunteer is a happy volunteer – one that can become fully passionate about and involved in the culture. And while I have no doubt that I could work in Fiji, I feel that I would spend much of my time thinking that it is not exactly right for me and wondering what it is I “should” be doing. So I have decided that I would rather leave that space open for someone that this job is right for and seek something that is right for myself back home. This was a very difficult decision for me to make because along with it comes explaining my decision to PC, to the family I was staying with, to the other trainees and volunteers, and to my family and friends at home (and all over the world). It also means changing all that I have known since College. I have lived and breathed PC since before I graduated and did not have any plans for that to change any time soon. However, I have come to know myself well enough through PC that I was able to recognize that PC is no longer the fit for me that it was before and I wanted to go ahead and act on that decision so that PC Fiji was less impacted by my decision to leave. I am thankful that I realized this before I was placed in a site and was committed to an organization that would have made leaving much more difficult for me.

My plan now is to go back home and look for a job (and by some miracle I hope to find one). I will probably also be looking into graduate school options. I hope to stay in the not-for-profit field and hopefully work with the Spanish speaking community because I really miss that.

Everyone has been so supportive of my decision to join PC, and you will never know how much that has meant. It has really been invaluable to me in my service of PC. This is a very hard decision to explain fully (especially through e-mail), but I wanted to try because of the support everyone has shown me. I would just like to thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers and hope that very soon I will have something just as interesting (if maybe a bit less exotic) to blog about.

Amy.

PS – I will put up my pictures that I did get while I was in Fiji up on flickr so you can see what I was doing while I was there. (www.flickr.com/photos/amz8op)