Story by: Parth Upadhyaya
When Aurora Fulp read the messages, her body went numb.
It was 8:30 a.m. on March 16, and she had just woken up minutes earlier. Fulp, a Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyzstan, unlocked her phone to see screenshots of an update from the Peace Corps website circulating in a WhatsApp group chat with other volunteers.
The headline read: “Peace Corps announces suspensions of Volunteer activities, evacuations due to COVID-19.”
“Everyone in that group chat was kind of just like, ‘Holy s—!’” Fulp said. “Because that’s never happened before.”
Through an open letter on March 15, the agency’s director, Jody Olsen, announced the evacuation of 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers in 61 countries because of the coronavirus outbreak and related travel restrictions. It marked the first time in history that the program had made such a move.
This left Fulp, a 2018 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, and the thousands of other volunteers with unclear futures.
Fulp had been in Kyrgyzstan since August 2018 as an education volunteer, teaching English to students 7 to 18 years old. Her cohort was originally given five days to leave its village for Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital; from there, they’d board a plane for the U.S. days later.
But plans quickly changed when the first three cases of COVID-19 in Kyrgyzstan were confirmed later that week.
Fearing that roads would soon close, one of Fulp’s regional managers told her to make her way to Bishkek immediately. In less than 24 hours, she threw whatever belongings she could fit into the few bags she was allowed to bring back and tried to say as many goodbyes as possible. Fulp spent time sitting outside her house to allow her students to visit her one last time.
“When you work with kids, you don’t want to just abandon them without giving any explanation for why,” Fulp said. “So (I was) trying to explain, ‘I didn’t choose this. I don’t want to leave.’”
On March 20, she and others were on a flight out of the country.
Still in shock, Fulp didn’t understand why volunteers were forced to leave so abruptly. Especially when the U.S. had — and still has — exponentially more coronavirus cases than Kyrgyzstan.
As nations began to ban foreign entry, the Peace Corps felt bringing all volunteers home was the most cautious option.
“We did not make the decision to evacuate lightly, but the health and safety of our Volunteers is our number one priority,” an agency spokesperson said by email Wednesday. “If airports or borders started closing down around the world, it would restrict our ability to perform safe aeromedical evacuations for any illnesses or surgical emergencies.”
Olivia Ingram and Tyler Ventura were two Peace Corps volunteers who flew out to Ukraine in August, officially starting their service in October. The organization made the decision to evacuate volunteers in Ukraine on March 14 because of the country closing its borders. Ingram and Ventura boarded a charter flight back to the U.S. on March 20.
Though the unexpected departure was difficult, Ingram took solace in dealing with the challenge with her fellow volunteers.
“At least you have that sense of community that you are with several other people going through the same thing,” said Ingram, a 2017 UNC graduate. “And you had friends you could talk with. So while it was a rough time, it was also a time of comfort where we could be together and discuss our experiences.”
For many, though, the real difficulties came after returning to the U.S. Volunteers were encouraged to self-quarantine, isolating themselves from family members and friends they hadn’t seen in months.
Will Arrington, who graduated from UNC in 2018, began volunteering in Armenia in March 2019. By mid-March of this year, he was back in the U.S.
“I think any Peace Corps volunteer would tell you that coming home to America in normal times is really weird, because you have to readjust to everything that you got unadjusted to,” he said. “But to come home to a country that’s basically not functioning, it’s just even more bizarre.”
Volunteers also returned to an economy in a nosedive.
“It was not a great time to get canned,” Ventura said, “but you know, that’s life.”
Ventura, a 2019 UNC graduate, has returned to his family’s home in Davidson, where he lives with his mother and four younger siblings. Like Fulp, Ingram and Arrington, he’s fortunate to have financial support from his immediate family. But that’s not the case for all former volunteers.
The Peace Corps offers a readjustment allowance of $375 per month for volunteers who have served less than 24 months and $475 per month for those who have served longer.
Now, returned volunteers will receive an evacuation allowance, which is up to 12 months’ worth of their readjustment allowance, in addition to the monthly payments they already accrued. The agency also extended volunteers’ post-service health insurance from one month of coverage to two.
Still, for Arrington, who served as a primary school English teacher in Armenia, one of the hardest parts of this process was leaving behind those he’d built relationships with.
Since he’s returned to the U.S., many of his former students have sent him Facebook messages, asking if he’d be able to come back.
“I’m like, ‘Absolutely, I’m coming back to Armenia,’” Arrington said. “‘I’ll just never be able to come back as your teacher.’ And they understood that. But it was hard for them to hear that, I’m sure.”
Arrington says he’d “still do it with no hesitation” even if there was a way he could’ve known a year ago how his time as volunteer would end. But now, he won’t look to be reinstated, because of how difficult he believes it’d be for him to readjust to his surroundings.
There is also a lack of clarity surrounding the reinstatement process.
“Due to the uncertainty around when the outbreak will end in the U.S. and abroad, some details about how this process will work are still to be determined,” a Peace Corps spokesperson said via email. “We will do individual country assessments to inform the timing of the return of volunteers and the best ways we can be of assistance to the people of our host countries.”
While Fulp isn’t aiming for reinstatement at her original post, either, she already applied to be a volunteer in a different host country — a process she completed before last month’s evacuation. In March 2021, she plans to depart for the Dominican Republic.
Whenever schools reopen in the U.S., Fulp hopes to work a temporary job as a substitute teacher.
In the meantime, she’ll continue to reacclimate to life in America. Though Fulp is upset with how her time in Kyrgyzstan ended, she’ll always be grateful for what her community provided her, and what she hopes she provided it in return.
“I’m still even now just appreciative of them for giving me all that they gave,” she said, “and allowing me to share even a little bit of the good that the U.S. can offer.”
