"We Came We Served We Stayed"

“We Came We Served We Stayed”

In the beginning of September we will have our Close of Service Conference (COS).  It is a little crazy to think about that that will be our last meeting as a group.  All fifteen of us have been through so much together, from our first day tsunami scare, to blackouts during a Halloween party we were throwing, to week long hurricane warnings that make us stranded wherever we were. 

We have already started planning our own welcome back to America party, where we would do an East Coast road trip of all of the major cities where people from our group are from. 

The other day, someone was telling me before she entered Peace Corps, she was reading Peace Corps Blogs, and thought she was going to Africa, so focused on that continent.  One of the blogs she read was from their COS conference.  She said there was a picture of the group of them wearing tee shirts that said, “We Came, We Stayed, We Served”.  That just put a bad imagine in all of our heads.  I don’t think about staying just to say I put up with it and didn’t quit.  I think the conference should be about focusing on our accomplishments for the past two years, since there has been a lot from everyone. 

We all agreed that we did like one thing about the tee shirt-Peace Corps paraphernalia.  In the almost two years that I have been here, the only paraphernalia I have is home made.  It would be nice to have something that said Peace Corps, which I didn’t have to paint.  So if anyone from the Peace Corps Office Land is monitoring my blog right now….Group 83 Samoa would just love a sticker or something!  After all we are going to “Stick it out” for Close of Service.