I risked life and limb to get here this morning, just to write to you people, and to translate my resume into French for an NGO. It rained again last night, and I’m not talking a few shimmering sprinkles. The sky opened up and dumped water on this dried up little town like a freaking bucket. The streets are a mess, and my toes are coated in the deliciously squishy clay mud that this town is made out of.
I was woken up by the complete absence of sound at around 4am. That’s the first time that has ever happened here, total silence except for the quiet little plopping sound of toads jumping around on my mat, there was nothing else. It was creepy not to hear a single donkey bray and goat cry or dog bark or anything, and I just laid there in my mosquito net watching the moonlit yard. The lightening had already started in the distance at that point but I couldn’t hear any thunder, that’s how fast storms move around here. By 4:30 I was up, with the rest of my family, dragging all of our bedding into our rooms because the wind had picked up and it was laden with sand making sleeping outside uncomfortable to say the least. Once I was inside and settled back into bed the wind slowed down again and I considered moving back out, but thought better of it. By 5:15 not only was the wind back, but big fat rain drops were starting to fall. A few big fat drops of rain have fallen before during sandstorms, so I thought little of it and got up to shut my door to keep the toads from taking refuge in my room. Well by 5:30 it had picked up full scale and started downright pouring. The wind drove the rain in through the termite holes in my walls where it proceeded to melt the mud bricks and form little mud rivers down my walls, so I got up one more time and dragged my net into the very middle of the room and put buckets under the termite filled sandy mud puddles and thought about how crazy my life has become that this was not odd at all, simply tedious and annoying when I’m trying to sleep. In an effort to better appreciate the moment I snuck outside by myself into to morning darkness and pounding rain and just watched the power of the storm for a little while. I was cold and wet (though not soaked, I stayed under the eaves and refrained from dancing in the rain like I have been known to do in the past) and alone and gloriously ridiculously happy to be where I am right now living this every day.
A few nights ago, after a fantastic dinner of (here comes a combination that would be considered amazing only here…get ready) fresh live oysters with lime juice, amazingly strong and flavorful soft brie, and cold beer (all courtesy of Luis), Pot pie by Levin, and (my pride and joy) home made cream-filled, cinnamon sugar doughnuts freshly fried up by yours truly, myself, Luis, and the other volunteers who were in town become engaged in a big long conversation about peace corps service and how we all feel about what we’re doing and whether or not we’re doing any good and how fundamentally selfish it feels to me to be here (though no one else seemed to feel that way) and all of that jazz. Following the conversation, during which I learned a lot about myself, I wrote a big long journal entry that was accidentally even more revealing about my true character, sometimes when I get writing I write things about myself that I didn’t know were true until I see them committed to paper and its always a little bit scary to re-read them later. Without getting to self-help book on you, I’ll share this: I think I feel bad about my presence here because I was on some level hoping that when I got here I would find people in dire need of my help, however unrealistic and border-line sadistic that hope is, I wanted them to need me so much that I would come out of this service feeling like I had done something so wonderful, that I had helped so many people who couldn’t help themselves (it sounds worse and worse every time I put it into words). The reason I feel so bad about it now is that I have come here and found that they don’t need me, not really, not in the way I had sort of decided they would. I don’t feel needed, and therefore I have tipped the scales in the opposite direction of the way I was hoping.
I wanted to come here and do great stuff for everyone else and then as a lucky side effect, I would have this amazing experience and opportunity to grow as a person; but instead it’s the other way around. I am here growing and learning so much and taking so much out of this experience for myself, and as a lucky side effect I might do a few good things along the way. This is something that I’m having a hard time coming to terms with because I thought I was being selfless by coming here but clearly that’s not the case at all. So there it is, my daily dilemma, and for now, until I can think of a better way to deal with it, I’m just going to work on being okay with whatever comes out of this whole thing, and rely on the wisdom of Levin to make myself feel better, his wise words being something along the lines of: “How could you be doing harm here? I mean I guess if you try really hard you could mess things up pretty bad, but I don’t think it could happen on accident.”
So there you have it folks, I’m going to do my best not to accidentally make a big mess here, all the while appreciating all the wonderful things my service means to me.
Much love and as always, more to come,
PS. A few new photos up on facebook if anyone is interested
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