When I was young I always knew there was something special
about Carol. A close friend of my parents, she had a family in a country that I
only knew as a Girl Scout Cookie and her house was decked out in brightly
colored swaths of cloth. Carol talked about wearing a lava-lava and going years
without seeing her mother. As a 5-year-old her colorful stories of a land far
away fascinated me.
It was not until later that I realized Carol's brilliant
textiles, hilarious memories and shy visiting family members who looked nothing
like her were the remnants of her service in the Peace Corps. As a young woman,
she had climbed on a plane for the first time in her life and watched the red
clay of her South Georgia home disappear behind her. The year was 1970 and she
was bound for Samoa. Since that day, her Peace Corps adventures have been the
stuff of legend in my parent's chosen family.
Carol inspired me even as I grew older. Coming home from college
and yucking it up over a plate of eggs, she told me how her lasting bond with
her host family had been featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Her
Samoan host family had come to rural Georgia recently to help her bury her
mother, over 30 years after she had first stepped onto the sands of their
Pacific island. Like the AJC reporters, I found myself wondering how that
relationship was possible. What bonds could tie her so tightly to foreign
people oceans away? How did that work?
After that brunch with Carol, it took me less than two
months to attend a Peace Corps information session and apply for service of my
own. And oh was Carol proud. During my time in the Peace Corps she sent me
cards, care packages and encouragement, exactly what I needed to withstand the
long Mongolian winters. And though I never developed a bond with my own host
family in the same way that she did, both Carol and the Peace Corps helped me
realize that family is not tied by blood but by brightly colored swaths of
cloth.
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