A little over a year ago, during training in Mantasoa, I asked every Peace Corps Trainer (a volunteer that had already completed 1 year of service) the same question. So how exactly do you make friends? If you know me well, you know I have a handful of close friends, but not a million people I hang out with all the time. I actually still keep in touch with very few people, partially because I’m awful at keeping in touch and partially because I don’t know who wants to talk about my extremely boring or odd day. But anyways, it was my biggest fear about moving to site. I figured I had a hard enough time making friends while speaking English, how in the world would I do that speaking a new language! I was more than scared, I was terrified.
Everyone one of my trainers said it would happen with time and not to worry. Obviously they didn’t know I was a third generation master worrier! Thank you Grandpa Freddy for those genes. I decided to trust them and figured that worst case scenario I would find a cat or a rat in my house to keep me company. Yet a year later I have people I consider my best friends. Who would have thought!? I certainly wasn’t sure it would ever happen. It took many, many months and I wasn’t sure that even if I did meet someone that I would ever be able to have more than a surface relationship with them. I don’t think that was too crazy of a thing to think about either… how, if I could barely speak the language would I get past our favorite color and favorite food? But now I’m happy to say I have the best friends and support I could ask for. I trust my best friend, Rota (Ruth in English), with my life. And sometimes I mean that literally.
I can remember the day that, for me, everything changed. She wasn’t just a friend, she was my person. It was after 9pm and I had just been let go of my job at the time over the phone. And as I hung up the phone I stood in the kitchen and sobbed. I had just thought the week before that finally my life was coming together here and as I like to say, I was “on top of the moon”. A good mixture of on top of the world and over the moon! Well in an instant I had fallen off the moon and came crash landing to my new reality. It was the first time I didn’t call home for help first. Instead, I picked up the phone and called Rota and invited myself over. On my walk to her house I realized how deep my relationship and trust in her had become. I was in the midst of a low and she was the person I knew I could count on to share with and help me out of it. After all, that’s what true friendship is all about.
And now, a year into my service I couldn’t imagine Madagascar without her. She was the one I made sure my mom had to meet, and she opened my mom with open arms and lots of food and a welcome gift. I don’t think it was until she met Rota (and Andry her husband and Adele my other great friend) that she realized why I stay and continue my work here in Madagascar. She sees the relationships I’ve created and the love I have here. And if I don’t accomplish another thing while I’m here, at least I have these life long friendships to show for it. That’s what the whole mission of the Peace Corps anyways - to foster love and friendship and understanding.
So I guess the Trainers were right, it did happen, and it took a while, but trust doesn’t happen overnight. And if any of the current Trainees were to ask the same question I would give them the same piece of advice - it will happen with time, but I would add 2 other pieces of advice that I also sent to my sister as she left for university recently. 1) The friends you start with will not necessarily be the friends you end with. Just in about everything I do I’ve found that it takes a few tries to find the friends worth keeping around. And 2) Go out, go places, and do things because you never know where your next friend is hiding.
