Word of the Day: Flexible

We received a call last week from the Latin America Desk, telling us that they forgot to inform us that we would be unable to live together during the training portion of our service (3 months). Kelly and I were immediately concerned with this. From day one we were told that we would not be away from each other for more than a three week time period.
Our first reaction was to ask what concessions could be made on our behalf due to the situation. In our mind we thought that since they waited until the last moment to tell us, that they could be flexible. WRONG! The staff of the Peace Corps have my utmost respect, but when they told me that there was just this minor change a month before departure, I have to admit that I over reacted a little. Sorry… The truth is I know realize that while they did make a mistake, they need to be consistent for all of their volunteers married or not.
It all boiled down to this. How flexible are we? We thought and thought about it. It is not a question that we have to answer all that much. I think that perhaps we are too familiar with getting our way, too accustomed to demanding what we know is right, and overall not challenged to do things that we do not want to do. After a lot of deliberation and discussion we came to the conclusion: We have to be as flexible as the demand us to be and not the other way around.
I hope to think that this is one out of many lessons that we will learn being Peace Corps Volunteers. Are we flexible? Yes. Maybe not as much as we thought, but I think we are on our way to learning how to be more so.