3-18 Peace Corps Moment

For the most part these days, life is just life. I’m doing my thing, working my job, drinking my kava and getting on with it. But every once in awhile, I get one of those moments where I have to take a step back and realize that Peace Corps is pretty great.

I play frisbee with a group of mostly ex pats every Monday. It is super laid-back pickup with an age range from 10 to 55 years old. The skill level runs the same gamut. There are 3 or 4 ni-Van pre-teens who have been coming and playing fairly regularly and are getting pretty good. I would say that with a little formal understanding of tactics, they have the makings of good club players in the US. (The kids here are just that athletic. It’s crazy.) While we play on the main field, there is usually some football-esque game going on behind us. (Football in the global term, not the American one.)
Today, we got about an hour into a 4-on-4 when one of the footballers started watching. We invited him to join in and gave him a three second rundown on the rules. It took about 90 seconds for his friends to realize he was playing. Then our field got swarm by 30 screaming children. I mean that literally. They were screaming like baboons.
We paused the game, explained the rules in a bit more detail and broke into teams. Lights against darks. It ended up being 18-on-18 on a half-size field. You can imagine how the next hour of frisbee went. They loved it, I had fun. I think that was a win-win.
Standing on that field was a Peace Corps moment. Those are the stories you hear, the pictures you see, the expectations you have of Peace Corps before you arrive. I don’t have those every day. In fact, I don’t have them every week.  But when I do have them, they are sweet.

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