Reactions

November 28, 2012 at 9:22 am Leave a comment

Something that I’ve found interesting since coming home is comparing different people’s reactions to the way I lived for two years.

When I meet up with people or they want to know about my experience, I really have no idea where to start. This makes some conversations awkward, because people just sit there and wait for me to give them a 30-second roundup of The Peace Corps Experience. Which is impossible.

So instead, I just let people ask questions, because it lets me know what they want to know, what they’re interested in. For the most part, everyone has the same questions. It’s when I answer those questions that I get the best variations in reaction.

Here are some of my favorites:

“What was your shower like?”
“I didn’t have a shower. I had a bucket full of water that I bathed with.”
“So… you didn’t shower?”
“Not really.”
“EEEEWWWWWW!!!!!!”
- 3rd grade class in Lancaster, Ohio

“She had a dirt floor!”
“No I didn’t, I had cement!”
“Oh, well, she had a cement floor!!!”
- Grandma, telling someone else about my Peace Corps Experience

“So, no power. But… what about… MUSIC????”
“Well, I mean, I had my laptop.”
“Oh, GOOD.”
“But after 3 hours the battery died and I had to put it away until the next time I could charge it.”
*look of terror*
- high school best friend

While looking at my scrapbook:
“Wow, you were the only white person!”
- my high school best friend’s mom

“Have you gotten super good at packing lightly?”
- another high school friend

One more quote, though a little off-topic:
“So I think I’m going to move to Vanuatu.”
“Why?”
“Because then I can come back looking THAT GOOD!!!”
- my awesome aunt