Manage your expectations, they said. Expect the unexpected. That’s what Peace Corps is all about.
Ok, I said…piece of cake. I’ll just roll with the punches, it won’t be so hard.
So you go on doing your thing, taking a couple hits, but you always end up getting back up. Bruises heal, right?
But then a group of 3 to 5 jerks armed with guns and machetes beat up your unarmed guards, rip off your security grates, and break into your house in the middle of the night to hold you, your wife, and your three young children hostage while ripping your home apart in search of valuables. Your Laptop, your iPad, your LCD TV, electronic picture frames, and all your emergency cash is taken. To make sure you know your place, they fire a gun inside your house, in front of you as you lay on the ground with your wife, your kids locked in their room less than 20 feet away. How about that bruise; Does that one heal?
I don’t know the answer to that one. My hope is that yes, it does. What I do know is that the road to recovery from something as traumatic as what my missionary friends experienced a few nights ago is a long one.
I can’t release the thought: Why do bad things happen to good people? The answer, I’m sure, is complicated. But it doesn’t matter. Apparently that’s life. The only thing that matters now is perseverance.
When something like this happens – when the worlds shows its ugly-side – it’s hard for me to understand how the victim can stay motivated. Oftentimes they don’t. Intense feelings of vulnerability cause them to retreat into a closed-off space, void of interactions and away from the public world in which they once lived. It’s completely understandable. We are not a people who have the inherent ability to process trauma, put it behind us so easily, and return to normalcy like nothing ever happened. No, instead the bad things seem to stick with us. It’s what we tend to remember the best, and oftentimes it overshadows all the good that we’ve experienced.
I’ve talked to many a PCV who’ve had security incidents, and for some, even though they come out of it scarred, their experience is often reinvigorating. Most need a recovery period, just like anyone else. They have their bad moments. But what I’ve also seen is that their trauma lights a fire inside of them, and they use that motivation to fuel their service. To show not only themselves, but the offender that they are not one to succumb to adversity. They will not fall. From what I’ve seen, resiliency seems to be a characteristic common to not only PCV’s, but to most within the ex-patriot community as well. And it’s one that I’m sure all the members of my compassionate and dedicated missionary family possess as well.
