On September 6, 2014, something crazy happened. I got on a bus, road it for two and a half hours over a partially unpaved road, and got off in a little village of 400 people where I would be spending the next two years of my life. Getting off of that bus, I had no idea what was going to happen, no idea where to go from there (literally, I had to get someone in the village help me get to my house). Luckily, it had been a sunny day and I didn't have to hop in the back of a truck with a rolled up foam mattress and 100 pounds of stuff, for lack of a better word (most of which I now know is completely unnecessary) for the last 20 minutes of the journey.
What was I supposed to do? There I was, this white guys, this saq, surrounded by staring family members and other members of the village, attempting to speak in a language that I was supposed to know about topics I knew nothing about. It was terrifying, especially for someone like me who feels uncomfortable standing out in a crowd. I'd lived my life blending in and going unnoticed. I learned within that first hour that there would be none of that in the village.
But what else could I do except embrace it? I had to get out of my comfort zone, live in the awkward, as we like to say here.
I slowly began to shed the old life that I'd left behind. I got rid of a lot of that extra baggage that I'd been carrying around, both literally and figuratively. I learned (and am still learning) how to live with less. There are so many things that I took for granted in the States, electricity for starters. Who knew, I'd be able to live without electricity and internet? Before, it would have been crazy to even imagine that. Now, I don't just live the life, I love it! Imagine how much less stressful it is to be able to connect with actually people as opposed to obsessing which of your old high school friends is getting engaged or pregnant. Being able to sit down and live in the moment is a great thing!
This change has also allowed me to focus more on the environment. Living in the village where almost everything comes from nature is a pretty awesome thing. When people do have electricity, where does it usually come from? The sun. What about the water to wash clothes, dishes, or even yourself? The river or, my favorite, the rain. The people in the village can live a life where they are leaving almost no environmental footprint and that is an awesome thing! But when I look back at the life I used to live, I wasn't cognizant of the impact that I was having on the environment just in my day to day life.
That being said, I'm not trying to slander the American lifestyle. Yes, there are a lot of things that Americans do that are completely unnecessary. You don't need to look further than the Hollywood lifestyle to see all of the excesses that people around the world strive for. But there are also many things in America and other developed nations that are great, such as easy and available access to education. You also rarely hear horror stories about child birth, whereas in the village almost every mother has one. I have even heard a story about a woman who had to get helicoptered out by British soldiers while she was giving birth because she was having complications and there was no other way to the hospital. On top of that, almost everyone has a safe place to store their waste, which, believe me, should not be taken for granted.
Part of embracing the village life didn't just mean shedding aspects of my old life, but also learning from the villagers and living their lives. It means building actual relationships with the people. This is something, however, that I'm still going to have to improve upon. I mean, I've done a great job getting to know the kids and a few select families, but I'm still not living the village life. I rarely go to the farm or play soccer with the men in the village, something that would be really fun to do as far as integrating is concerned. If your a man in the village, you do at least one of those two things on a regular basis. I also have based my service around work, so many of the people that I interact with know me on that level. They see me as a white guy that came in to do work. They don't see me helping out in the fields as much or playing football. The way that I have been shaping my first year of service could almost come off as detached.
The thing that bothers me the most is that this is how I wanted my service to go. Prior to service, I had to write and aspiration statement. Recently at the Mid-Service Training, all of the volunteers were given their aspiration statements again and asked to reflect on them. To be quite frank, mine sucked. It was so work oriented that I was embarrassed I had written something like that. I wanted to go in and build relationships so that work could get done. It seemed like those relationships were nothing more than a means to an end, and to be honest, I'm ashamed of that.
The purpose of this post isn't to beat myself up. I'm actually really proud of the work that I've been doing in the village. The latrine project is going really well and I've had the opportunity to teach women, with the help of the Community Health Worker, about how to have a health pregnancy and new born. I've worked with the school to teach children about preventing Non-Communicable Disease and we even had a health fair to try and educate the villagers on these topics. On top of that, I have a lot of projects coming up that I think will be really important for the village, especially since they're projects that the village wants to see happen.
The point of this post is, instead, to show that, yes, on September 6, 2014, something crazy did happen: my life changed forever. I will never be the same person again. But this change isn't static. It's a constantly evolving process, and as the halfway point in my service has come and gone, I realize that there are still a lot of changes I need to make. If someone asks me to go help them chop, unless I have already committed my time to someone else, I need to go. If I'm invited to go play a game of football out on the field, I need to swallow my pride and go out there and play, damn it! Bring on the blisters and sore feet! Isn't that what Peace Corps service is really all about, anyway - getting dropped off in a village and just embracing it?
During the final year of my service, my main goal is to actually do the Peace Corps like it was meant to be done. Not just to live in a community, but to actually be a part of that community, not because I want to get future work done, but because I want the people to know just how important to me they all are. My experience wouldn't be the same if it weren't for the awesome people of San Vicente, and I want to make sure that by Close of Service next year, they all know that.
I can't talk about mid-service without also mentioning the amazing cohort that I have. If it weren't for them and their constant support, things would definitely no be the same. So, on that note, cheers to another year guys. Let's do work!
