Crushed: December 21

We spent another early morning at the PC office in a last-ditch attempt to hold onto our volunteer status. In the midst of yet another sleepless night, one of our friends had developed a fool-proof way to guarantee that we were not traveling outside of our villages without permission. The plan involved our supervisor calling us with a specific word or phrase for that day. We would then use our phones to take a picture or video at a designated spot in our village with the specific word on a piece of paper. We were excited by this plan as there was no way to cheat and all it required was our supervisor calling us at random with a word or phrase. Theoretically, supervisors should be in continual contact with their volunteers, so it wouldn’t be any extra work for him. Along with this new check-in, we also added the following to our previous behavior contracts: loss of 6 vacation days, forfeit of our PC passports so that we could not travel outside of South Africa until the conclusion of our service and the option for any PC staff to visit us unannounced in order to assure that we were indeed in our villages. We realized that we were offering up most of our civil liberties, but were blinded by our desperation to remain PC volunteers.

Printing our rebuttals and new behavior contracts, we hand delivered them to the country director well before the noon deadline. One of our friends wanted to make sure that the country director fully understood her new phone plan, so she attempted to explain. Before she could get out more than a few words, the country director exploded. Paraphrase: “Phone! I had to turn off my phone last night because of all the calls and SMSes regarding you! It went on all night! Do you have any idea how annoying it was?” Momentarily speechless, we looked at each other in disbelief before calmly explaining that we had no idea what she was talking about and that our phone comment was regarding a new consequence we had devised for our behavior contract. After hearing our idea, she angrily snapped that it wouldn’t work because PC staff were not allowed to have picture phones. We explained that we could e-mail the picture and she responded by telling us that she would have a decision by 4 pm that day.

On our way to Hatfield, we couldn’t help but reflect on the country director’s statements about turning off her phone. Just the other day she had informed us that her phone was always on and that we could call her anytime. She had also told us that we could have people call her on our behalf. Now she was angry that people were calling her in regards to our situation, choosing to ignore numerous calls. Our disbelief quickly turned to anger as we were once again confronted with the fact that the country director had made up her mind well before our first meeting and had no intention of changing it.

Halfway to Hatfield, we received a call from a PC staff member informing us that Kelli had to go to the U.S. Embassy in Johannesburg in order to replace her passport. As there was really nothing else to do, the whole gang decided to join her and we were quickly picked up by a PC driver. Along the way our friendly driver sadly informed us that he had already been booked to drive us to our villages and the airport over the next few days. We struggled to hold onto the little optimism we had left.

After roughly six hours in which we were lead to the wrong section of the building, told we had to go to the nearby mall to get photos taken, locked out while the staff were on break, and shuffled through security way too many times, Kelli finally received a new three month passport. Speeding back to Pretoria, we were more than an hour late for our meeting with the country director. Apologizing for our tardiness, we anxiously sat around her table while she told us that not only were our rebuttals not what she expected, but they were also extremely well-written. Small consolation considering her next news: we were being administratively separated.

Emotionally and physically drained from the last few days, we sullenly listened as we were told that we would be issued plane tickets for December 23 and would have about a day to return to our villages, pack, and say goodbye. Furthermore, the country director informed us that she could not change the date on our tickets to accommodate the Kramers’ visit. Instead she offered the following advice: “I’m not telling you that I and other volunteers have changed the dates of our tickets at the airport”. We took the hint and planned to change our tickets when dropped off by Peace Corps at the airport.

Following days of sleep and food deprivation, crying and fighting with everything we had, our emotions were dead. Despite our anger, we all decided to resign instead of being officially separated in order to maintain clean records and receive the post-PC benefits, including a month of free health insurance.

The resignation process began that evening with exit medical exams administered by one of the PC medical officers. The PCMO was very kind and informed us that she had fought for us and believed in giving people second chances. Everything seemed to check-out and we got vouchers for dental cleanings, TB and stool sample tests to use when we returned to the states. Kelli’s WHO card had been misplaced, so the PCMO forged her a new one and we were on our way back to the backpackers for pizza, cards and packing.