3/26/10 Peace Corps Morocco: Sh*t Happens (Rated PG-13)

Scene: 4 PCVs sit around a table, eating lunch. I knew the other 3 before this conversation took place, but most of them hadn’t met each other before.

The conversation turned to intestinal distress, as it so often does when PCVs assemble. One of us pointed out that most Americans would find it at least odd, and probably disgusting or even nauseating, to discuss diarrhea while eating.

But, well, that’s life here. Like the book says, everybody poops. And since it’s a source of distress and fear for so many new Volunteers, it gets brought up in scared tones – at first. But as time passes, it becomes more and more normal-seeming to discuss your bowel movements with your friends. Newbies compare symptoms and offer diagnoses. Mid-term PCVs share the results of the required poop test portion of Mid-Service Medicals. Older PCVs reassure newbies that this, too, shall pass. (No pun intended.)

And before you know it, it’s just another topic of conversation, as appropriate as anything else for mealtime chit-chat. After all, it’s not nearly as alarming as some of the other things that happen to Volunteers here.

As one of us proposed today: “That should be the motto of Peace Corps/Morocco: Sh*t Happens.”