There are the lists and stories of ‘look at the cool things I’m doing in the Peace Corps.’ The events and commonalities that anyone in the US can automatically say, ‘well my girlfriend in the Peace Corps ate stuffed chicken head last night while we skyped.’
I know I tend to always look at things in the most positive, optimistic, buoyant and humorous light. But with this experience, and this blog, I think it’s really important to be candid and bluntly honest. Not only for the sake of self-reflection, but for future volunteers scrounging through the blogosphere, and my friends and family trying to make sense of it all.
This is hard. Really hard.
Stressful, draining, exhilarating, dramatic, and demanding.
Some days are mundanely average and filled with me catching up on episodes of Modern Family and ignoring my Kiswahili study list. You feel incredibly isolated and bored. Other days are completely packed with long list adventures: (Monday: writing an analysis report, teaching English, getting ‘Happy Birthday Mzungu’** sang to me by the mental inpatient ward, making banana bread with the neighbor girl, playing Uno with the kiddos, and getting measured for 2 new dresses).
**It wasn’t my birthday.
As much as you explain your life to friends and family back home they will never, ever truly understand your experience. Ever.
Some days I really despise America-why do people care that Snooki is pregnant? How are Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum potential presidential candidates? What the heck is Lin-sanity? (Really curious on that last point)
Some days I miss America. I can feel the cold bite of October in Kansas, smell the grass at College Football games, and hear the roar of the crowd when the team first hits the field.
I have craved food to the point of salivating at the mouth-literally. In my mefloquin induced dreams I’m at a party with limitless cheese, wine and a monstrous mound of ice cream. Hot showers…don’t tease.
We simply tell ourselves ‘nothing wakes you up like that cold bucket bath’ to get through it.
Or, we just decide not to bathe. Because we are dirty people. Really, really dirty. And we like to talk about how much we smell. And our poop. And sex. For some reason it is the international points all PCVs fall back on.
Everything is slow here. People marvel I can write a letter in 20 minutes when they expect it to take the entire day. First world workdays seem impossible, and they are when no one else works like you. Everything takes time. Projects. Change. Adjustment.
Patience, as a result, has grown exponentially. Don’t tell me you can’t fit 28 people in a 10 passenger dala dala, because I’ve seen 34 fit and stood up in it (at 6’0”) on one foot when it broke down, restarted, and eventually met it’s demise leaving me on a 60 minute hike home in the desert.
You learn more about yourself then you could ever expect. And fast. You grow to embrace the good and truly hate the bad. You question the bad, intensely.
You drink when with other PCVs; like college 2.0.
You are watched 24 hours a day/365 days a year. When you’re a volunteer you’re always on the job-even the average, boring days. If you’re not doing anything you feel guilty for it, and anyone can ‘piga hodi’ and ask for help, especially nap time.
There is unbelievable freedom amidst absolute restraint.
‘What’s that, it’s March?! I’ve been at site for how long?!’ Weeks zoom.
‘This day is never going to end. How is it only 10 am, what am I going to do the rest of the day.’ Days drag.
Daydreams are filled with realizations of how easy life in the states will be when you can communicate in the same language-all the time. And I can't tell you how many times I've already imagined exactly what KCI will look like when I step off that plane back in America.
Sometimes you can’t change everything you see-and that sucks. Seeing kids get hit with rods at school, or hearing it next door. That is the worst. Realizing that you can’t.
I’ve felt completely uninspired and been overwhelmed with ideas desperately searching for the starting line.
Relaxing, secure, nostalgic moments come in the strangest forms, i.e. listening to American music, even if it is ‘The Thong Song.’….well, maybe not that song.
You are constantly followed. A shadow that won't go away, and eyes that are ALWAYS watching (yes they just saw you trip, yes they just saw you pick your wedgie, yes I just used 'wedgie' in a blog). Everyone is simply ‘shangaa’ to hear you speak the language. Even though I want to play soccer with a ball of plastic bags and all the neighbor kids, sometimes I just want to go for a walk and not have to say ‘no my name is not mzungu, no I’m not a bank, I am fine, I Am Fine, I AM FINE! STOP ASKING!’
Every experience is different. My site mate is in a village with no electricity, running water, and has snakes slithering through all corners (insert Harry Potter reference here). Another volunteer is in a village that only has goats, milk, and onions (insert Shrek quote here). I work at a hospital and my neighbors are the principals at the schools. Everyone has good days and bad days. Everyone gets homesick, and everyone has ‘thank God I’m in Tanzania’ moments.
Don’t get me wrong-I love this experience, and that is not me sugar coating it.
But it’s hard.
Yes Peace Corps, you’re right. It is the hardest job I’ll ever love. Darn you and your slogan that is glaringly true.
