Just Keep Pedaling: A Peace Corps Volunteer in Uruguay

I stared at Beatriz in disbelief. I actually hoped that my shaky grasp of Spanish had failed me yet again, and that I had misunderstood what she’d said.

“You’re moving to Artigas?” I asked. “Today?” She nodded and laughed at my surprise as though to say, “Yeah, what’s so strange about that?”

I wanted to say, “How can this be, after all the time we’ve spent meeting to discuss ways to improve your business? How could we have been sitting here one week ago, talking about how you were doing tracking your expenses and sales, and now you tell me you’re closing the business and moving to Artigas?” But it was too hard to figure out how to say it in Spanish, so I simply kissed her goodbye and left.

I couldn’t help thinking that she didn’t even say, “Thanks, Connie. I know you spent a lot of time and prepared accounting materials specifically for me. I’m sorry I won’t be using them after all.”

As I trudged home, kicking at the dusty road, I thought, “Boy, this really is the toughest job you’ll ever … something!”

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Baltasar Brum, a tiny pueblo in the interior of Uruguay—the second-smallest country in South America, bordered by Brazil, Argentina, and the Atlantic Ocean. After three months of training in the capital, Montevideo, I had been working in my site for almost seven months. I was a small business consultant without any real success stories after seven months! I couldn’t seem to get any traction. I had potential clients who expressed interest in my help but then never kept any of their appointments with me, and I had clients, like Beatriz, who suddenly changed course as soon as we started to make progress.

The chill in the fall air and the bleak, treeless, flat landscape matched my mood, as I thought about how I had come to this . . .