Years ago, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania, I learned a lesson shared by most PCVs the world over: when you spend a lot of time with someone, you usually become close friends—no matter who they are.
I entered Peace Corps in a cohort of 67 people, most of us young. Service started with ten weeks of training, during which we learned basic Swahili and became acquainted with Tanzanian culture.
At the beginning of training, the dynamics in our group were unlike anything I’d ever experienced. There were no cliques. Almost all 67 of us shared the same energy levels. Our instructors would ask the group, “How are you?” and we would answer as one: “Good!” or “Tired” or “Okay” depending on how all of us, as a unit, were feeling.
Literally within hours of our first session, we had already closely connected with each other, bonding over the common experience of traveling together to a foreign land.
But inevitably, over the course of training, groups did form. We all remained amicable with each other, but over time we drifted closer to our small groups of friends.
At the end of training, we were finally told the answer to the question burning in all of our minds: where in the country would we each be placed? By this time, we all badly hoped to be placed near our closest friends. Tanzania was enormous, and it took several days to traverse. Many of us had close friends or romantic relationships, and we dreaded being placed days apart, and potentially with only letter-writing and occasional email to communicate.
It turned out I was placed far from most of my closest friends. Almost all of them were placed near each other, and I shed some tears at the news. But then, to my great relief, I learned that I’d also been placed right next to Ron, who I already had a huge crush on by the end of training.
My other closest neighbor would be a gal who went by the name of X. I had almost no relationship with X at all. She was a mystery to me, someone in a different clique, and who I hadn’t initially connected with.
So it was that I found myself in an isolated rural community with my best friend…and a girl I hardly knew.
But within weeks of being sent to our villages, I had spent many hours with X. We needed each other. My Swahili was better than hers, and she was better than me at rural skills like carpentry and animal care. She helped Ron and me paint our houses; I helped her build a chicken coop; she advised me on my chickens; we all exchanged Swahili tips and funny stories about interacting with Tanzanians.
X and I quickly became close. Isolated together with a great deal of time on our hands, we soon discovered each other’s fears, hopes, and secrets. By the time she left a year later, she was one of the closest friends I’d ever had.
Most Peace Corps Volunteers have similar stories. Our closest Peace Corps friends are often people that we didn’t originally connect with, but who we came to deeply love, simply because we were thrust together and spent so much time getting to know each other.
The experience made me believe that almost anyone could potentially be a close friend of mine, given time. I carry this lesson into my work today with Reach Out Wisconsin and political dialogue.
We don’t get to choose our families, and Peace Corps Volunteers don’t choose who they’re placed next to. But most of the time, we come to love those who just happen to surround us. And in the right circumstances, most strangers could become people we’d love, too.
