All volunteers go through a very formal week-long Completion of Service ordeal at the Peace Corps Office in the capital city, Maputo. It involves a long checklist of administrative tasks, like a final Portuguese language evaluation (we both got advanced), getting all our Meticais out of the bank and closing our account, pages and pages of forms to sign or get signed by various Peace Corps staff, the comprehensive medical check-up (including the three stool samples that form the base of so many Peace Corps jokes), and the final interview with our Country Director. The big city is helping us along in the cultural readjustment process. Staying in our fancy little Peace Corps hotel, with air conditioning, hot water showers, and cable TV, in a city full of so much traffic, so many restaurants, so many friends to hang out with, it’s all a little overwhelming for a couple of volunteers fresh from two years out in the bush (especially for Luc, Janet actually seems to enjoy the change of pace). We had a little piece of reverse culture shock with an all you can eat pizza lunch with the new volunteers just finishing training; we left the Peace Corps Office looking like a college party gone wrong.
The Peace Corps Director also invited all the volunteers completing their two year stints to his shwanky pad overlooking the Indian Ocean, for a gourmet home cooked meal.
We got a very brief chance to say goodbye to our host mother in Namaacha, our training town, by volunteering to lead the session on Information and Communication Technology for the new group. The good-bye was interrupted by the Peace Corps car just as our mom pulled some samosas off the fire. The new volunteers swore in on December 8, reminding us of our own swearing in exactly 2 years before, and then on December 9 we officially finished our service and gave our last good-byes to Peace Corps.
We were thrilled to have a chance to sit down with Dan and Lisa, the lucky new married couple who will be moving into our little house in Zóbuè next week. They are wonderful and have lots of exciting project ideas. Zóbuè will be lucky to have them!
We are now RPCVs, the R standing for Returned although Peace Corps Volunteers like to joke that it stands for Recovering. We’re heading out on the night bus for a short COS trip in South Africa. We’ll be back in America December 20!
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