I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Kingdom of eSwatini from 2011-13. This summer, I returned for the first time along with my kids and husband who served with me. The school hosted a welcome back celebration where we were able to catch up with teachers and former students.
A highlight was visiting the library I worked in nearly every day of my service. One of my seventh grade students—now an adult herself—and I looked over the shelves, remembering book reports and favorite titles.
We lived right on school grounds, so we were able to go back to the little house we lived in for two years. The blue curtains I sewed for the front window still hang there. The house finally has running water, but I suspect the family of skinks I watched each morning has been displaced.
My Peace Corps service was influential on my life, but also on my writing—living in another culture was paramount to understanding what sorts of cross-cultural difficulties Earthlings might have with aliens, and anyone familiar with the region will recognize language and geographic callouts in my books. I’m also deeply passionate about the wild spaces found in Southern Africa, providing fuel for the environmentalism and conservation that leek into my writing.
I’m writing on this trip too. Well, editing mostly. Our days have been busy and fast, but I’m snatching any spare hour I can to push this new book forward.
Most of all, it’s a gift to stand here and look backwards, see a bright-eyed, brown-haired woman standing on the edge of time and wave to her with the confidence, pain, growth, and joy of a decade between us.
