I’ve been trying to figure out how I want this to go. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you things factually, chronologically, logically. I’ve been trying to figure out how to change my style of writing, how to change this “blog” to become more conventional. I’m here, finally writing again, to tell you it’s not gonna happen. So, I’m apologizing now.
These past few few weeks I visited my community, the one I’ll be with for the next two years. Additionally, training is almost over. So many parts of myself have felt not whole as I’ve struggled to be me when freedom doesn’t exist. My village was relatively quiet in the two days I was there. There was no dancing, singing or excitement on my arrival. I’ll let you read that again. Seems selfish doesn’t it? It is, but also I realized after reflecting I appreciated it. It put me in my place and reminded me of something I learned in college: integration takes work. It takes work to understand the feel of a community of people, their thoughts, their tastes. And it takes an equal amount of work to learn how to make myself heard and valued as a small fish in a new pond. Which is something training tries, but does not, teach. There is no emphasis on finding your own voice. But voices are out there. I was so relieved after seven weeks of searching. I went out in my province, Luapula, and found that hey, originality blooms and everyone is still different. I love my host family and my friends at training. But the actual training? This 8-5 sitting? It makes me burn with something akin to hatred. It makes me feel like we’re sitting in a cardboard box with the walls too high to see over. There is such a massive difference between what they drone about and what we will be doing. My service is going to be me, fulfilling my primary goal, but me, doing it in my own way with my kids and the help of my counterpart teachers. Flexing freedom out in Luapula was a breath of fresh air. There were moments of uninterrupted stillness. There was me being independent (in glimpses) once again. There is a wide river near my house that distantly roars at night when settling down to sleep. There are trees heavy with growing ripe mangoes. Sweaty kids bounce on the tree branches across from my porch. We are taught how to speak about the Peace Corps version of development, which is people-to-people focused, human empowered, and about building abstract capacities. The education sector notoriously has the lowest reported levels of fulfillment amongst volunteers. It’s hard to quantify and measure teaching and communities of practice with other teachers - it’s hard to see ‘tremendous multiplier effects’ when you’re here for two years and not twenty. In short, it’s hard. (Everything’s hard, everything’s fine). But outside the walls of training I can feel the breeze of families laughter pass by, the tug of a hug from a child on her way to school, the feeling of hope. The feeling of hope is what I’m holding on to. This blog won’t be about the details, it’ll be what it’s always been - a form of meditation and evaluation of what I find to be real in this experience called life. Thank you to myself for letting me be okay with this - and thank you (to whoever might read this) for being okay with it too.
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Author's note:Hi, I'm Helen. Welcome to Lifted ~ I write to lift myself up. Archives
March 2021
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