The "Peace Corps Nightmares" Post

Yesterday, I got a call out of the blue from D.C. Naturally, I had a minor heart attack. It's no longer excitement when D.C. calls. Before it was like, "Maybe they're calling about my invite!" Now it's, "They're calling to nag me about some tasks." I don't mind though. It's like when your mom nags you to do something, it's because they care. That call lit a fire under my butt and today I finally took my first step towards all these medical tasks and I scheduled appointments. I scheduled appointments for EVERYTHING. It felt good to know that according to my appointment calendar I can have everything done by the end of June. Of course, I'm sure something will go miserably wrong. Which brings me to the point of this blog post, Peace Corps nightmares.

Due to my overactive imagination, I have had some terrible Peace Corps nightmares and day dreams. I thought it'd be a fun post to share some of my miserable Peace Corps "castles in the sky" and see if any other FPCVs have the same wonderings. I also thought it'd be funny for you RPCVs.

1. The Forgot To Pack for Two Years Nightmare- There I was in the airport, saying goodbye to all my loved ones. I boarded the plane only to suddenly realize, I HADN'T PACKED FOR TWO YEARS! I hadn't even packed for a day. I frantically found the pilot of the plane to plead with him to delay take off. He said that he would delay it for thirty minutes and that I had to buy things from the airport stores. Trust me, there wasn't a lot. It was horrible. I yelled at my family and friends, "Why didn't you tell me I had no luggage!?" They all just laughed at me and told me to calm down. This one was pretty vivid and I woke up in a cold sweat. I think it stemmed from reading a blog on packing and thinking that I might not pack clothes. Apparently, I was determined to leave everything else behind as well!

2. The My Mom Tied Me Up in the Closet Nightmare- Yes, this literally is something that I dreamt up. I had a nightmare that the night before I was supposed to leave for service, my mom lost her mind and told me I couldn't go. She then proceeded to form tackle me (a trick I suppose she picked up from my brother), bind me like a pig, and stick me in the closet where I waited until it was too late to board the plane for Africa. In all honesty, I'm afraid this is something that might seriously happen.

3. The What If the Kids Hate My Guts daydream- Most of the time, work at the office is slow. So I sit and daydream about nothing else but Peace Corps. I get to thinking, you know it's been a long time since I've been around kids a lot. What if they hate me? What if they think I'm weird? What if they never learn to listen from me and I just make them cry everyday of their existence until I leave depressed... of course, it's a downward spiral from here. I start imagining that I gain like forty pounds and my face breaks out. I come back fruitless and uglier than ever before. Not all these things could possibly happen... right?

4. The Peace Corps is Actually Just a Cover Nightmare- So, I know this dream stemmed from reading a few 1984 quotes one night before bed. We arrived at Johannesburg and we're taken into a huge aluminum building. Everyone's excited and talking, until we walk in the building. There's men with guns everywhere and they tell us to sit down and shut up. We of course, oblige. Except one young man who gets his head blown off. We are then brainwashed. The dream is not really clear on what


If I knew how to work this, I'd overlay the words
"Not sure if Peace Corps is real... or plot to brainwash all young graduates.

we're brainwashed to do but we are undeniably servants of whatever regime did the brainwashing. I've also had this as a daydream. A little Peace Corps is too good to be true, it's got to be a pyramid scheme type thing.
One this is for certain, we don't really know what lies ahead of us. Evolutionarily, that is supposed to scare the shit out of us. It doesn't make sense for our survival to have not developed some sort of future telling power in our evolutionary history. Unfortunately, we don't. So we're left to our beautifully crafted imaginations and for those like me, a rampant anxiety problem.