10/8/14
Hi everybody, I’m back again.
Last Sunday I went to an Eid
celebration at the masjid. Apparently masjid is another term for mosque. You
learn something new every day, even if you don’t want to. It was pretty cool.
Joe was in town and we were hanging out all weekend so we went together with
Mollie, Naomi and David. We missed the actual slaughtering but we watched some
of the butchering. The men there slaughtered a dozen bulls, chopped them up and
handed out the meat. Luckily we were there early, and white, so we got some
meat that we took back to Mollie’s and cooked up immediately.
So there we were, eating steak that had literally been slaughtered about
90 minutes before and drinking cold beers. Some days are better than others.
Future volunteers don’t take this as the rule, days like this are by and far
the exception. But it’s fun to focus on the few high points instead of the
multitudes of low ones.
There’s a movie, The Guardian
maybe, Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher and they’re rescue divers. In it,
Costner says something to the effect of, “you’ll spend 90% of your diving
career in a mild state of hypothermia” as he mercilessly trains the new divers.
I’d say that sentiment echoes one’s experience Peace Corps. Not mildly
hypothermic, but very mildly depressed.
We’re all so concentrated on what
we’re doing here because it’s now our lives. When I did volunteer work before
even when I didn’t like it at least I got to go home at the end of the day.
When something irritates me at work or at home there’s almost nothing that I
can do about it. While it’s possible, it’s not feasible to move out of a
neighborhood I don’t like or find a job that I do. I’m stuck here. I am living
this volunteer life whether I like it or not.
It’s unnatural to always be giving
of one’s time. To be volunteering 24/7. There has to be some degree of
selfishness or narcissism to lend balance to one’s life. Taking time for one’s
self, self-care, is important to the human species. Being able to take care of
yourself is necessary for life to go on and out here there’s fewer
opportunities and options to do that. I also hate whining so I’m done for now,
it’s just hard out here some times.
One thing that’s been weighing on
my mind is my host family. For at least the last week they’ve been keeping one
of their dogs in a small 2’x3’ house on about a 4’chain. It’s barbaric the way
they’re treating this dog. And it whines all through the day and night like no
one’s fed it. I haven’t actually seen them feed it but I have to imagine they
do while I’m not home, right? God I hope so. The worst part is that I don’t
feel like I can say anything and if I could, what would I say? “Hey, stop
torturing your dog.”? Combined with the fact that my host sister keeps bringing
me dinner it’s like they’re being so nice to me and complete assholes towards
this dog. Animals are not treated well here. This is the rule, not the exception.
I see plenty of abused animals here every day and it’s truly disgusting.
They’re real emotional terrorists.
10/13/14
Hey everyone, I went to Kaiteur
Falls on Saturday. I’ve seen it spelled a lot of different ways so that’s what
we’ll go with. It was pretty cool. Supposedly, it’s the highest single drop
waterfall in the world at 741 feet high. I wonder who had to measure that.
But better than that was getting to
see some other volunteers that I hadn’t seen in 3 months. We went through all
the training and PC bullshit and through that firestorm of bad decisions and
useless training sessions we forged a real family. It really was like seeing
some brothers and sisters I hadn’t seen in a while, we just picked up where we
left off.
What I was really struck by was the
boundless optimism I saw from these people. It was more inspiring than any
water falling off a cliff. Out on the Essequibo coast we really are isolated
from most of the other volunteers who live on the other side of the river.
Traveling to town on a good day can take upwards of 3 hours and it’s mentally
taxing. I really don’t like traveling into town or even being in town. There’s
too many people and I can feel my anxiety rising. My friend Holly said that
it’s important to be flexible and be able to adapt to differences. I think I’ll
have to try that next time I’m in town.
But back to why I was struck by the
optimism. On the coast, the other volunteers that I do see are the jaded 25ers,
the group that came before us. I like them a lot, CJ, Mollie, Iris, Ally, Doug,
they are all really cool people and they’ve helped me get used to Guyana. One
thing that I like is the fact that there are no illusions with them. They don’t
pull punches about how shit things can be sometimes and don’t pretend to love every
second of every day. They’re realists to the max and I appreciate that. It
comes, I think, from being here for the last year and a half. They know that
having expectations that are too high will only end disappoint. I like being
around realistic people.
That’s why the optimism and
idealism that I heard from the other 26ers surprised me, I wasn’t used to it.
Initially, I affixed it to their naiveté and the fact they still held some of
that je nai se qua (was that right, Nick and Chris?) and innocence that allowed
them to believe they were making a difference every day. It actually kind of
annoyed me, it felt like they were ignoring all the bad stuff about being here
and only focusing on the good and how great things were. It felt like they were
lying to themselves. Telling themselves how great this whole experience has
been and ignoring the parts that were bad. In my mind, that’s the pinnacle of
unhealthy psychological behavior. I don’t think you should focus purely on the
positives and deny the negatives because that’s not real life. That’s a fantasy
world where nothing bad ever happens and it’s just not real. Bad stuff happens,
I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it and when someone denies that they’ve never had a
bad day or minimizes their own sadness it’s unhealthy. Acknowledging that,
yeah, sometimes I have a really shitty day where I don’t accomplish anything is
important, I think.
I’ve never been one to push my
beliefs on other people. And while I didn’t agree with the other volunteer’s
views of things, the last thing I’d do is condemn them for their views. But
then I thought about why they might be doing that and I think it comes down to
the differences in ways people approach their lives. Where I like to have
balance and acknowledge both the bad and the good some others may want to
emphasize the good. It’s not my place to tell them what I think about their
strategy but I should support them regardless. And as I thought about it I
realized that maybe I was going about my service in the wrong way. Maybe I needed
to be more positive about what I was doing.
10/16/14
I know,
I know, I was supposed to post yesterday but I just forgot. I’ll post tomorrow,
I promise.
Some
days it seems like Peace Corps lied to us. When you think about PC you think
about going to some exotic locale, living in a small hut, and strolling around
the village clad only in a loincloth. Well I don’t have a loincloth. This
stereotypical view of a volunteer is obviously not everyone’s experience, I’m
not an idiot. I guess I was just hoping that someone in this entire country
would actually want volunteers here. Everyone I’ve talked to just doesn’t
really seem to give a shit that I’m here. If they don’t care, why should I?
Everyone
I talk to, nurses, doctors, people in the community just gives me the smile and
nod, disbelief that I’ll be here for two years and a promise to call if I can
be helpful. And that’s a best case scenario. Then I never hear from them again.
Being here is like being in quicksand. I’m slowly sinking into a pit of my own fear
and doubts and every time I try to reach for a branch, a reason to be here, it
gets pulled away. The people here wouldn’t be doing anything differently
whether or not Peace Corps was here, I think. All the technical expertise and
willingness to help is wasted here. I’ve worked hard, I’m not afraid to do
something that’s never been done before but without the buy-in from the people
that are here, what’s the point?
Every
day is a struggle to do something meaningful and most days, I fail. And I’m
getting tired of it.
It
definitely feels like I’m whining right now. “Oh look at me, I get to live in
South America totally funded by the US. Woe is me.” I’m not trying to bitch and
moan too much but it’s seriously frustrating being hired to help in a country
that doesn’t want my help. It’s like getting hired for a new job then showing
up and realizing there is no job and you have to build the company from the
ground up on your own in a country of people you’ve never met who’s culture and
customs you don’t understand. Thank God they speak English, kind of. But if it
was easy, everyone would do it. Right?
11/7/2014
So you
may have noticed that this post is very very late. A whole host of excuses
could follow and not fully explain what’s been going on. I’ve just been the
right kind of busy and bored not to post this.
Last
week, we had reconnect. All the volunteers showed up at the same hotel and we
all went through more bullshit PC training. The training was completely useless
and unhelpful. I wish they’d stop. Getting to see everyone was really the best
part and most people seem to be doing well. I want to be like them. Reading
through what I’ve written before I realize it sounds very negative. Having this
blog is like a reverse facebook. Instead of seeing all the great parts of my
life you are exposed to only my worst thoughts. In the future, I’ll try to
temper them with more positive things that have been going on. For example,
today I’m going to my friend Ashley’s school and working with some of the boys.
Working on what? I don’t know. But I’ll do some activity they enjoy, debase
myself a little and maybe things will turn out okay. See y’all later. I miss
all of you lots, I’m 6 months in now and I’ve got 21 months left. Here we go.
11/10/14
I had a bit of distressing news
from my conference a few weeks ago.
Peace
Corps has stated on several occasions that they begin developing sites far in
advance of our arrival. They do the groundwork and, are supposed to, make sure
that the community has things for a volunteer to work on and willing members to
help.
At this
conference I got confirmation of a suspicion I’ve held for a while. It turns
out that Peace Corps did have a site that they thought would be perfect for me.
From what I can gather it was in Georgetown and would have been working with
administration in the Ministry of Health to help implement their new
psychological health plan for the country. Sounds pretty cool. Apparently, two
days before they announced our sites an unknown staff member stated that my
site would not be safe since it was in town and that it would no longer be a
viable site. 2 days before sites were announced when this staff member had
months to say something. A new site was then located for me over the course of
two days. All these months and months of preparation were down the toilet in a
minute and my site was basically whatever someone could scrape from the bottom
of the barrel in 48 hours.
It’s
unfortunate but what am I gonna do? Cry? Whine? What’s that going to do?
Instead I’m taking it as a learning experience. It sucks but no one can fix my
problems except me so that’s what I’m going to do. And as for Peace Corps, I
appreciate the staff’s honesty but I don’t feel comfortable asking them for
anything after this. That’s not to say they can’t be inadvertently helpful but
I think Peace Corps has done me enough favors at this point. Now I’m on my own,
in my opinion. Peace Corps has no bearing on what I do anymore. I’m going to do
exactly what I want to do. They had their shot and it didn’t work out so I’ll
take things from here.
