You get an idea, inspired by a shadowy and unformed feeling that sits somewhere between the diaphragm and the back of the throat, and you start to imagine you could do something good in the world. You know you are small and the world is vast and constantly changing. If you stand at any one point on it, even on your tiptoes with your neck craning above the shifting horizon, you still can’t get a good perspective on any other part of it. You must move to another point and ask that person next to you what you are seeing because it doesn’t quite make sense yet.

Then you realize your idea has brought you a distance from your past self, maybe philosophically or emotionally, but maybe just physically. And you like it. You like who you have become and you like all those people you’ve met that you never would have met if you had stood at your starting point. Where once you saw in black and white, now you see in nuance and and complexity. Now you are a problem-solver, a storyteller, a humanist.

“I’ve started down a road and can’t turn back.”

That’s a statement many Peace Corps volunteers think.

“I’ve started down a road and can’t turn back. I’m so glad I brought my camera.”

That’s me. Not a Peace Corps volunteer. A documentary filmmaker. (Also, not a rare species these days.)

I’ve jumped into something I believe in — a film emerging from a nebula of ideals and individual curiosity and commitment and cultural confusion and universalism — and I don’t want to turn back. From my days as a foreign exchange student in Senegal when I met the first Peace Corps volunteers I’d ever seen in the field, I knew I had to bear witness to the transformation of these individuals and the maturation of America’s idea of itself as a goodwill nation. And I always wanted to know what members of the community learned from having an American join them for a brief time. What is the legacy of the PCV?

As a filmmaker, I believe in patient and revealing storytelling and knew this had to be a long-term project. One that endures the same time as the ‘subjects’, in this case three people with different backgrounds and beliefs who jumped into Peace Corps service for different reasons.  I found Andy, then Catherine, then Marcy, and they — happily for me — committed themselves to joining the project. Which is to say, they are the project.

So, now I’ve got three people with me on this road. And we are trying to make sense of what we are seeing with the help of those along the way.