Why the Wanderlust?

Explanation: The following blog post is the first of a six-week long blogging challenge that we have decided to take part in via "BloggingAbroad.org". Generally, these are co-authored but penned by one of us. We will take turns over the coming weeks. 
This post is in response to a question along the lines of “Why do you live abroad and how did you get there?”

“Why am I here?” It seems that no matter where we are located we find ourselves asking that question. “Why are you there?” This is a question we almost exclusively get from people back home.  However, it is the question that drives us from one corner of the world to the next, because the simple answer in all its complexity is… we love traveling! When I first met my wife, the first thing I learned about her was that she had been to Egypt, and the first thing she learned about me was that I had just returned from Norway. Did we meet at a "traveler’s anonymous" group, sort of like an AA meeting? No, but we should probably go to one at this point.

Two years after we met we embarked on our first yearlong stint abroad in 2008 on a study program in Tübingen, Germany. One thing you learn in Germany is that they often have single words that sum up concepts that most often take entire sentences to say in English. One of my favorites is Wanderlust, a word often appropriated to English that essentially means "travel bug" or to have "itchy feet." It is safe to say that we discovered our Wanderlust in Germany, and in a special way we found Heimatgefühl, or a sense of home.

Venice during the semester break.

The true potency of the wanderlust that we had acquired in Germany didn’t fully bubble to the surface until about August 2011, just before we got married.  We both have slightly different versions of this story, but for the sake of brevity I’ll just speak for myself. I graduated from university in March of 2011, which was still a bad year for the economy. When I finally hit the American job market I was baffled and dismayed at the uninspiring options I had to choose from. I was working at a call center before my German professor sent me a link to a corporate job that needed German speakers. “Oh wow, an office job that will let me use a foreign language and gain experience working for an international company!!!” I thought with the most naïve excitement.  The old timers attribute this attitude to a sense of entitlement that only a so-called ‘Millennial’ can sport, but I really expected a lot more on the other side of the walk at graduation. Instead, all I found were the sour words of encouragement that often went something like “Just feel lucky that you have a job!”

I had a job all right! Forty hours a week plugging away at a computer and getting screamed at by Germans over the phone between my all too frequent trips to the break room stocked with M&Ms and free Starbucks coffee. And thank god for the coffee as I was supposed to report to work by 4am for the European workday. I think I was supposed to love this but all I thought to myself after three months on the job was “THIS IS IT?!?!?!” “This is why I got a… I mean TWO degrees?!?!?” I know that you are supposed to start at the bottom and work your way up, but still. To cheer myself up I started looking around the room for something to aspire to, or a sort of goal to keep me motivated in the morning. I looked at my boss and thought to myself “Hmm, if I do a good job and stick with this long enough maybe I will be like my boss. Do I want that? No. Hmm, or maybe I could be his boss? No, don’t want that. Oh, or maybe I could run this whole center someday? Oh, please god no!” However, in that economy, simply wanting to leave and actually leaving was easier said than done, and only a fool would even say it anyway. It took months to complete what my wife and I still refer to as the “Paperwork Gauntlet,” but in February 2012, just 11 months after graduation, we were on our way to our first adventure abroad since we left Germany, in South Korea.

We left for Korea with four objectives:

1. Move to a foreign country we know nothing about and kickass at it.

2. Travel to other countries in the vicinity of said country.

3. Pay off student loans.

4.  Try all kinds of food most people would prefer not to even look at.

Making kimchi with our best friend in Korea.

We accomplished all of those objectives in spades! Korea was often a frustrating place to live, but we both felt that we had overcome the challenges and all we wanted was more. Now that we had more work experience, we applied to join the Peace Corps, something Jessie had wanted to do since before we met, though she herself often says that she can’t quite explain why.

This was one of those “back in the day” style Peace Corps assignments.  Starting from literally every group after us, you theoretically have some say in where they send you.  That was not the case for us.  We had to turn down a post in Mongolia on health concerns, and left South Korea to visit Jessie’s Not-Returned Peace Corps Volunteer aunt who still lives in the country that she was assigned, Palau a paradise in the South Pacific Ocean, having no idea if or when we would next hear from the Peace Corps about our assignment.  

Donovan standing on "Little Beach," the family beach in Palau.

About one day into the trip, we got an email, the preview of which said, “Congratulations on your invitation to serve in…” before promptly cutting off at precisely the point of interest.  We sat outside of Melekeok Elementary School, pirating a weak wifi signal and waiting with baited breath to see where this next step was going to take us.  The minute that the email loaded, I snapped up the computer, not letting Jessie read it (because me announcing important things like this to her instead of letting her read them for herself has somehow become a tradition for us).

Seeing the country name, I smiled to myself as Jessie animatedly asked, “Well?  Where are they sending us?”

“Guess!  What’s the most stereotypically Peace Corps country ever?”

After a slight pause, proving that she and I are often too much of the same mind, she cautiously guessed, “Ethiopia?”

Well, she got it on the first guess!  We quickly ran back to her aunt’s house with the news and were greeted with such responses as:

“Oh…well…”

“Is this a good thing?  Did you want Africa?”

And perhaps the most entertaining, “You know the old expression, don’t you?  PCVs who go to Asia come back more spiritual.  PCVs who go to Latin America come back more political.  PCVs who go to Africa come back crying, and PCVs who go to Oceania don’t come back at all!”

I can’t say that this experience has left us or will leave us crying, but I can say that it has been a good thing and one heck of an adventure at that.

Last day of school 2015.

In the end, I think that is what this all comes down to.  This is an adventure for us.  Be it studying in Europe (a move we hope to repeat), working in Asia (another possible repeat), or volunteering here in Africa, we view this as an adventure, and it’s one that we’re lucky enough to share with each other (and with those of you who follow our blog).  We’ve gone from an office with copious amounts of M& Ms, to the land of kimchi, and finally on to the land of perfect coffee.  Now, having entered 2016, the year in which we will end our service, with just 7 months until we “gong out” and leave, all we can do is wonder, “Where’s next?”

Peace Corps Swear-in at the US Embassy: The only time in service PCVs look this good!

-Donovan