Coming tomorrow, a love story, Peace Corps style

Guyana, 2012                    photo by Kristen Hare

  

  

     

  One of the things I least expected from the Peace Corps was to fall in love. And after I did, I certainly didn't imagine how that relationship would extend my two years in Guyana into a lifetime. And yet, this summer, my Guyanese husband and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary, we return to Guyana every other year with our two children, and just yesterday, my 5-year-old told me he was, in fact, a Guyanese. 

  Coming tomorrow, the story of how my husband and I met, and then, the story of how we really met. It starts like this...

  The very first time wasn’t actually meeting as much as passing. Jai sat on a bridge with a few friends one hot night in Guyana and I walked by. I’d had one of those horrible Peace Corps days, one where every flaw I had was called out. I was fat. My hair wasn’t pulled back nicely. My slip was showing. 

  So I took my fat, rag-a-muffin, slip-showing, poor little self down the main road in my village, Adventure, and bought a small tub of ice cream, a tin of Pringles and a glass bottle of Coke from a little rum shop, then stomped my way home.

  “Miss,” a voice reached out from the dark, calling me the respectful title all female teachers got in public. “You sharin’?”  

  “NO.” I shouted back and kept on stomping.