Peace Corps goodbyes are kind of strange. First of all, Peace Corps is kind of a solitary thing – even though you get together with other Volunteers occasionally the majority of the time you are working with your community by yourself. Second, you make friends with people outside of your training group – so they are on a different 2 year schedule then you and will not be leaving at the same time. And third, not everyone who starts finishes the 2 years – for a variety of reasons. So of course you get close to people, but you know from the start that there is a possibility that people could leave at any time.
One of the members of our business training group recently decided to go home for family reasons. Unfortunately when you decide to leave Peace Corps you don’t really get to say goodbye to everyone. You kind of just pack your bags and go.
So when our training group got together for a meeting a week after we found out Allysun had left, we wanted to say goodbye in our own way. Allysun and TJ (also in my training group) had made a deal – they would both wear a friendship bracelet (sorry I don’t know a less juvenile name for them) as long as the other one was still here. Naturally, with Allysun gone, it was time for TJ to take his off.
Allysun – you will be missed!
