E.T. Phone Home

In the Peace Corps, E.T. stands for “Early Termination.”  There are three ways to terminate your service:

• A volunteer can resign
• A volunteer can be administratively separated (i.e. kicked out)
• A volunteer can be medically separated due to illness or injury

My training group started with 46 people – 14 have ET’ed.  I will be number 15.  I have chosen to resign from my service (as opposed to officially closing my service) because of grad school.  I have been desperately trying to get my UK Student Visa processed in Uganda, but due to lack of printers/scanners in my village and restricted Kampala travel (where the Visa Application Center is), I cannot get my student visa here.  Since it takes 8 weeks for the visa application to be processed, I have to return to the U.S. as soon as possible in order to have my passport returned to me before school begins.

I am slightly stressed out because I have to leave Uganda in a bit of a rush.  I’ve been traveling for the past month (for meetings, conferences, and vacations) and have to pack up my house and say goodbye to everyone this week.  I’ll be leaving Kuluva on Friday and having a farewell dinner with the Arua PCV’s on Saturday.

The past two weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster, saying goodbye to my training group at our final conference and preparing to leave Uganda.  Mom and Dad have received many phone calls with me freaking about student visas, grad school, and early terminations.  They were very understanding and offered sound advice when my head was spinning . . . (albeit they’re slightly biased for me to come home early).  :)  And my PCV friends have been extremely supportive of my ET, reminding me that grad school is the next step and that should be my focus (not closing my service with Peace Corps).

Now being back at Kuluva, sitting in the computer room, typing this blog (because there’s nothing else to do), I am reminded that things at site are not so great and it’s okay to leave.  I found this quote on the blog of another PCV who also left early:

“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.”  -Robert Tew

Instead of sitting around site (possibly just watching movies and reading books), the next four weeks could be better spent preparing for Leeds, readjusting to modern civilization, visiting family, and decompressing from two years in the Peace Corps.

So that’s my decision to ET and come home. 

(In case you’re wondering, my arrival back in the US will be sometime around July 27.)

 The remaining 32 people in my Peace Corps training group