January 21, 2009
I’ve been searching and listening for inspiration for my next blog. A few times I’ve had an idea or two but they haven’t come to much. In one way or another, they all fall flat. This morning I decided that if I didn’t write something soon, I may not write at all, and so…

Recently I returned from a trip abroad to the U.S.. I’m not the first, and certainly not the last PCV to pause their service to take a peek at their motherland. We pause to re-group, to remember, “who we are”, where we’re from, and oftentimes come back stronger.

It was like a dream. Not the kind of fantasy-dream you have when you’re too happy to speak, but rather, the kind of dream that’s not quite real, the kind of dream that is somewhere in between here and there. My entire experience was like that.
One of the most common questions I was asked was if I “couldn’t wait to get back home and be done with the Peace Corps”. How was one to answer that? Of course I will be happy to return home, to old and new friends and family. Of course my culture offers me many more comforts than a foreign culture might. Of course the comforts afforded are more numerous and varied. However, I couldn’t feel any kind of emotion that would allow me to answer yes. Because, in fact, I am in no hurry to return. I’m not considering staying. I’m not considering continuing my life abroad. Partly this is because those who love me want me home; partly this is because I have become disillusioned with the ex-patriot lifestyle I’ve observed.

One thing I’ve been trying to reconcile is how to equate “this” with “that”. How do I equate who I’ve been with who I’ve become? How do I successfully exist with both my old peers and my new peers? How do I equate the “financial crisis” in America with my landlady who only owned a car in the “good old days” of the Soviet Union, and even then, didn’t drive it (because she is a woman); who can see her breath inside on a regular basis because the cost of heating her house several hours a day is too great; who I often find sitting in the dark because electricity is too expensive?

On my visit home, this topic was a common contention. I believe now that this is because most of the people I now come into contact with have never been poor. They’ve never been in serious want of anything. I’m not speaking of the want to go out to eat, to sell or buy a home, to buy a new car, new clothes or to go on vacation.

Fear is a powerful force. As Americans, we fear so many things. Many of those things have to do with the potential for loss. It’s not that I cannot understand this feeling. Nor is it that I don’t identify with the feeling in any way. Rather, it surprised me how few people understood where I was coming from when I said that the “financial crisis” could be a good thing – or at the very least, it wasn’t the end of the world as we know it – and if it WAS the end of the world as we know it, the new world might not be as bad as we’re told.

I’m not all that well read – and it’s true that even when I did have a chance to follow the news (when I was in the U.S.), I didn’t follow it as closely as I could have. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention. I’ve been paying attention to my mom when she talks about the stronger sense of community she feels at her local grocery store – when she takes out her mounds of coupons and those around her comment about how we all have to watch our money now. I’m paying attention when my friends talk about friends that they’ve helped out because they lost their jobs, and how people came together to support one another and to help on another – because – for me, I don’t think that the worst thing that can happen is to have to need people.

The poor have a greater need for people’s help. When people help, they serve that need. When they share their wealth, when they look outside themselves at a situation larger than themselves and choose to participate in it instead of run from it, they do not become imprisoned by it, they become liberated from it.

When we need one another, it does not make us weaker, it makes us stronger. I joined the Peace Corps because, although my life has been somewhat less charmed than many of those I’ve met here, it has been more charmed than most of the people in the world. Service is the only thing I don’t ever have to think about. I am an average person, with average intelligence – it doesn’t take much to help out. It doesn’t take much to participate.

I’m not itching to get back to the U.S. because there’s more for me to see and do here. There’s more I have to learn. There’s more I have to ask about. There’s more I have to listen to. I’m not finished yet. I have friends here; friends who won’t be accompanying me back to the U.S. Friends that, once I’m finished in September, I will likely never see again.

Lately I’ve thought a lot about what kind of Peace Corps volunteer I will have want to have been. My “big village” doesn’t have much. I don’t have NGOs to partner with, or sitemates to plan projects with. I’ve struggled to have a continuum with those I have worked with, including the firings of my first counterpart and director; with a new director who tried to fire me. And seeing things no person should see – confronted with not only the written words of the conditions of women in the world – but the chance to KNOW some of those women, to see their struggles, and to be able to do very little to change ANYTHING.

But I can do a little. One of my most dedicated students wrote me a text while I was writing this blog. It read: “Good Morning. How r u? I’m happy today, I don’t know the reason.  there will be 4 participants at the swimming club this week…”
I didn’t come to Peace Corps with the idea of making a difference. I know this seems counterintuitive, but I’ve done too many service programs to feel the idealism of “changing the world”. For me, there’s too much ego and arrogance in that. Rather, more times than not, the world changes me. With Peace Corps, for the first time in my life, I KNOW that those with whom I work, their lives are better because I am here. Even if my programs don’t continue when I’m gone. Even if the library where I work doesn’t ask for another volunteer. Even if I have nothing to show for my service at the end, at least I can say that those I have worked with; those who have faces; those who have names, they knew me, and they changed me.

I realize this is a simplified version of events that affect many people. I could be wrong in my assumptions and perhaps would feel differently if I was there and therefore more personally impacted. Nevertheless, knowing what I know, thinking what I think, how could I be anxious to return to the U.S.? I am not anxious at all. I am learning how to live slowly. I am learning how to listen, how to care. I am learning how to be the kind of person I want to think of myself as being. I am not afraid of the details.

Yard animal count:
7 chickens
2 turkeys
2 geese
1 dog named Beethoven (named by my landlady, not me)