Ephesians 4:22

Melken Feet

I learned something about myself this weekend. It was profound, it was life changing, I cried. You see, Friday was my birthday. I turned 27 and once again I was gone. Its my own fault, I really need to plan to be somewhere cool next year for my birthday, like working for the State Department at Embassy Vegas.

I do feel like I am getting old, that I need to “grow up” and quit being a perpetual intern, or a student, or drifter without a permanent address. But this wasn’t the revelation I received. No, it was something else, something about my past.

Earlier in the day I bumped into a Peace Corps Fiji volunteer. I had rented a car for the weekend and was heading out west, and so was he, so I offered him a ride. Plus I had no idea where my hostel was, so really he was my navigator, little did he know. So I pick him up at 1:30. I was late because my instant noodles weren’t so instant, and off we went. 5 hours we sat in the car together and talked, mostly about the differences and similarities between Peace Corps Fiji and Peace Corps Vanuatu. They are pretty similar, except for the whole cell phones and free texting thing.

It is a little embarrassing, but even after such a long car ride, I don’t know his name. It is something like Padmere, or Pahmadal, P-something. I am horrible with names, but never forget a face.

So, five hours later we get to where I was dropping him off at…. a Peace Corps party. I got out and joined the fun, only to have wicked flash backs of my two years of service. My revelation was this: Peace Corps volunteers are friggin filthy dirty pigs. Dear Lord. I remember it all too well. All the classic arch types were at this party. There was the guy who gave up wearing shoes two years ago and now had hobbit feet and nail fungus, but thought it to be a mark of hardcore cultural transition. There was the girl who hadn’t shaved legs or pits for the same length of time. All the guys had nasty facial hair. The girl with dreads, the guy who didn’t wear pants, the hippy volunteer couple in the corner who hooked up during training. And then the afflictions: boils, tropical infections, ace bandages and iodine everywhere, stitches, the broken finger, and of course the substantial scaring. And the body odor. The place reeked.

And the “house” was a pit hole. Pit. Hole. I literally tried to not touch anything, and at one point, moved a pile of soiled underwear off a chair with a stick. The stick was in the house. And this is what I reveled in before. I lived the dream. And now I have come full circle, back to where I started. Poking dirty piles of soiled underwear with a stick.

“Long beards worn by certain classes of the society are a sign of savagery and disorder – a symbol of degeneration” – The Rastafarians

It seems to be a common trait of volunteers. You enter as a clean cut semi-professionally dressed individual ready to serve your country and the people of your host nation. You leave with matted hair, facial scars and hotty eyes, looking down on the disconnected people back home.

And you stink. But that means you are hardcore.

And this was my revelation. It took the gloss off my memories, and gave me a vantage point by which to look back at experiences, to stare back at my inner latent dirty friggin beast and to see what social constructs had re-caged it. And then decided it was probably better, and having lived the dream, I can now move on with my life, shave once in a while, and use deodorant.

I am 27. I once had the nastiest, greasiest matted flaming red beard you have ever seen in your life. And I am ok with that.