Passage II

Serving in the Peace Corps

After much too long a flight, we landed. Being that I fully stretched my legs for the first time in twelve hours, I poked my head out the bulkhead door and exclaimed, "This place is hot." I had arrived in Safi, Morocco, a seaport on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa. (17) The hot, dry wind, blowing off the desert seemed to melt right through me. I suddenly wished I could duck back inside the air-conditioned 747 and head back home.

That was how my Peace Corps experience began. A local welcoming committee greeted me, and we shared bowls of sweetened goat's milk and plates of fresh dates. I gratefully accepted their hospitality and satisfied my hunger.

Eventually, when I completed my Peace Corps service, and realized that I had also satisfied my hunger for new experiences. But I'd accomplished much more than that. I had become more adaptable, more perceptive, more self-reliant—in short, more grown up. I'd not only helped people in Morocco but also learned Arabic, developed lifelong friendships, celebrated Islamic holidays, and come to understand and appreciate a culture different from my own. I had known I would be teaching English to teenagers whom were studying to become everything from shipbuilders to chemical engineers. Never imagining that the work would lead to moments of self-discovery. I never dreamed I'd miss my home in the United States as much as I did.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that for all the ways in which people all over the world are different, there are just as many ways in which they are alike. This knowledge reassures and inspires me. When I remember that human beings share many of the same hopes, and fears, dreams and disappointments, then I can help my relationships.(28) Perhaps this is a small thing, but no less significant than mastering a new skill or suddenly understanding a concept. After all, it's not what we know that makes us smart but how one chooses to use that knowledge.