The Toughest Job.

A self-encouraging post-it note on my friend Stef's mirror


There’s an old slogan Peace Corps uses in its advertizing that reads “Peace Corps: The toughest job you’ll ever love.” To make light of the painfully slow pace of activity and frequent setbacks most volunteers experience, hilarious modifications to this legendary phrase have been made. I would like to share the acceptable ones with you. The most common one I hear is, “Peace Corps: The toughest job you’ll never do.” This one is popular with volunteers out in the bush who have vague job descriptions and difficulty finding consistent work to do. My favorite (and the one that resonates with me currently) is “Peace Corps: …The toughest job.” You know…still waiting for that “you’ll ever love” part.
Yes, I am experiencing another funk. But it’s ok. The Country Director of Peace Corps Jamaica told us in training that having extreme ups and downs is not only a normal part of this service, it means that you are doing something right. Though this may be so, it’s still really exhausting. I’m currently in the process of working out some major kinks in my job with my Peace Corps programme director, but my patience and temper are being tried BIG TIME. I remind myself that each bad day and each problem serves to teach me lessons in the long run and that by going through all of these insanely frustrating times makes me stronger. But still… it’s hard, nuh tru (isn’t it true)?
So yes, we volunteers may joke around about the problems of Peace Corps life and sound extremely negative at times, but deep down we all love so many things about this whole adventure and we know that just like broccoli, it might taste bad but it’s good for us. We may not always show our appreciation for Peace Corps staff and our Jamaican partners, but underneath our sarcasm and cynicism… we ARE grateful, and we wouldn’t have this experience any other way.