Last post from El Salvador

This is my last dispatch from El Salvador, but probably not my final post on this blog; I’ll likely publish again once I have settled into my post-Peace Corps routine and had time to reflect and adjust to my new surroundings.

The café project finally bore fruit 
with a soft opening last month

I’ll be leaving my site on Wednesday, September 9, then spending 36 hours in San Salvador to finalize my Close of Service at the Peace Corps office, and flying out of El Salvador the morning of Friday, September 11. I’ll land in Minneapolis–my next home–the afternoon of the 11th to immediately begin the next chapter of my life. My new job at a software company begins Monday, September 14.

With drastic change on my immediate horizon–a new city; a “real” job in an unfamiliar industry; the freedom and independence I have gone without for two years–the task of expounding on the personal and intellectual growth I have experienced over the past 25 months seems daunting and I’m not going to do it here. Rather, I would invite you to consider what impact two years detached from the culture and circumstances to which you are accustomed might occasion upon you. Perhaps you have lived a comparable experience and can easily relate–many people have left their comfort zones, whether by choice or not. (This is not to suggest that one’s comfort zone is not dynamic and adaptive–it is.)

I am grateful for the people of El Salvador for hosting me for these two years, and for belonging to a country whose values permit it to sustain an agency like Peace Corps for over half a century. I do sometimes wonder how different my Peace Corps service would have been had I served in a country that was experiencing a better moment than El Salvador has during my service.

August was dreadful,
but the situation will improve

You see, 2013 to 2015 has been a fraught period for El Salvador. The murder rate has reached disturbing heights this year (August, my last full month in El Salvador, witnessed a record 907 murders) and national morale is extremely low amid an environment marred by endemic violence, political polarization, and interminable out-migration. I don't doubt that I would have encountered more opportunities to make a meaningful impact as a Peace Corps Volunteer if I had served in a country that was on a positive economic and social trajectory, as Peace Corps is at its best when it is complementing existing positive trends in its host countries.

I offer these musings not to dwell or portray El Salvador as hapless–there are many positives here that I have discussed in previous posts, and moreover, I am convinced that better times await El Salvador–but to advise future Peace Corps applicants to consider a country’s near-term trajectory (its “moment”) when deciding whether to apply to serve there.

Enough on that. I truly am grateful to have had the opportunity to spend this brief chapter of my early twenties in El Salvador. It will be years before I grasp the extent to which my time here has influenced me, but I know with certainty that I’ll wear the distinction of Returned Peace Corps Volunteer proudly for the rest of my life.

Minneapolis, here I come.