When the pandemic swept around the world, Peace Corps was forced to evacuate all of their volunteers, nearly 7000, from the sites that they were serving in. Two years later Peace Corps has been slowly returning volunteers to these countries it once served. Madagascar, the country in which I served for 3 years, finally got its first volunteers since the evacuation. Having finished up 11 weeks of training in Mantasoa, Madagascar, the volunteers swore in yesterday to begin their journey as Peace Corps Volunteers in Madagascar.
While watching their swearing in I was reminded of my service, the amazing and life changing experience I had, and all of the work that was done and has continued to be done in Madagascar. This blog was started as a way to chronical my time in Madagascar; my life and work as a volunteer, the culture of the Malagasy people, and the Peace Corps experience as a whole. In light of the new volunteers starting their own service I wanted to share a post I wrote as a letter to future Peace Corps Volunteers.