Dear PCV,
So, you’re heading home soon. Peace Corps has been a great experience — and a challenging one, to be sure, but one you’d never trade. Now you’re ready to confront another happy, but challenging experience: returning to family and friends, a job hunt, and….a lot of people who don’t understand how much you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, how you’ve been transformed by your Peace Corps experience.
Let’s face it. A lot of folks back home just don’t get what’s so wonderful about living in a nipa hut and pumping your own water. Or learning to sing aloud in a room full of people. Or speaking a foreign language that only a handful of people in the world can understand. Or eating fish and rice for breakfast. Or riding on a hot dusty bus with chickens squawking around you….
Only your fellow Peace Corps/Philippines alumni get it like you do. No matter how recently or how long ago we’ve served, our common experiences bind us together in a unique way. We invite you to join us – to continue to enjoy aspects of the Philippines you’ll miss, and to continue making a contribution to this country you’ve come to love. The Peace Corps Alumni Foundation for Philippine Development wants YOU – to join in our fun and our work, and to contribute your ideas and your spirit to our endeavors!
Whether you settle in Washington, DC or elsewhere in the world, you can continue to have a link to your Philippines experience by taking an active role in PCAFPD. Join us in continuing our commitment to the social and economic development of the Philippines: Be a mentor to a young student, join the Board, write for our newsletter or website, help us reach out to the Filipino-American community, organize a fund-raiser or information event in your community, contribute your skills to strengthen the Foundation. Send us your mailing address, so we can keep you up to date on our activities. We look forward to getting to know you!
And, oh yes, there is life after Peace Corps!
From the RPCVs and friends at PCAFPD