With only four months left in my Peace Corps service, I’m
starting to think a lot about what going home will feel like and of course
trying to begin to understand the effect Peace Corps has had on my life. People
often ask how I have changed in Peace Corps and what I have learned. I’m not
sure. I mean, how can you live and work for over two years in an environment
like this without coming back changed? I know what people want to hear. “I have
so much more patience.” “I really appreciate what I have back home.” “I want to
devote my life to helping others now.”
I think the real answer is much less exciting than people
might hope. I think it’s really about making a lot of relatively small
adjustments in your way of interacting with your environment. It’s really about
learning to put into practice basic skills that, though we might have always
known, we have never had to apply in truly challenging situations - work and
otherwise. And actually, I think a cool part about this experience of living
and working with very little support in a developing country is that I probably
won’t really understand exactly how I’ve changed or what I’ve learned for a
long time. Or at least I will continue struggling to apply “Peace Corps
lessons” for the rest of my life. For now though, here’s a couple of things I
think I have learned so far in no particular order…
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| Morengy Fighting in Betsiaka |
1 1. To pick my battles
I thought I had this concept down when I
babysat as a teenager. Everyone knows when it comes to kids you have to choose
whether getting them to put on an certain outfit is worth the resulting hour-long
meltdown when you know you will repeat the same routine getting them to go to
bed before the parents come home. Then I got to college. I thought I mastered
this skill again when directing different student groups on campus, especially
as Music Director of Mosaic Whispers. Truly, getting 15 highly caffeinated,
over-worked college students to give you undivided attention while rehearsing
the same page of the same song for three hours in a small music room at
midnight on a Wednesday provides an opportunity to pick your battles. #heartmosaicwhispers.
I finally think I’m beginning to understand what picking your battles really
means. Learning to let go of things that are out of your control here is maybe
the most important step in becoming tamana
(“at-home”) as a volunteer. If from the minute you wake up you are frustrated
by the drunk people at 7 am, the charcoal stove heating too slowly, the meeting
being four hours late, the absence of fresh food in the village, the constant,
constant, CONSTANT harassment by men (and by men, I mean almost all males from
the age of about 10 and up), the slow pace of life, the lack of phone service,
water, and electricity… it’s exhausting. So I pick my battles.
My current battle is against the chickens who
have recently learned if they fly up into my kitchen window, they have great
access to the yummy bananas, limes, and soap (yes, soap) that are on the table.
I have spent the last month or so with a white-noise-type tapping in the back
of my head only to race into the kitchen realizing all my food has been pecked
and I no longer have soap to wash dishes. It’s an all-out war. I learned to
remember to close the one window only in time for the chickens to learn they
can fly up to the other window and jump on in. My play. Okay, so I guess I’m
actually still working on this skill…
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| lunch |
2 2. The identities I thought defined me
actually don’t
For an example I think a lot of people I
know can relate to… I came here as a “foodie.” I knew the best recipes,
healthiest foods, and tastiest restaurants, and turned up my nose at fast food
and pre-packaged products. The problem was, I thought being a “foodie” was
really part of who I was and not just something that interested me. So I was
defensive about this identity. If an activity was based around food, I always
hosted/cooked. I have to be involved when planning a menu, choosing a dinner
location. Cooking had to be done the “right” way. Roadtrips were a headache
trying to find “good” food on the highway in the middle of Oklahoma or Arkansas
(and boy the things I would do for a McFlurry right now…)
I am still really into food – cooking it,
thinking about it, talking about it, googling it, eating it, reading about it –
I am half Johnson after all. But I no longer feel defensive about it. I think
people get defensive about identities like “foodie” or “university student”
because by defending and providing those terms, they are defending and proving
who they are and what they believe as people. The traveler has to let people
know the places they have been and their expertise on traveling when the
subject comes up. The philosopher has to weigh in on every debate and prove
they are the authority because they have studied the subject even though they
won’t necessarily say so explicitly.
If you asked me to describe myself in
America, I would have used terms like “athlete,” “musician,” “foodie,”
“outdoorsy,” “educated,” etc. So what happens when you come to a place where
it’s impossible to exercise and you’ve gained 20 pounds? You don’t know the
local music and have no space to sing privately? You struggle cooking the most
basic Malagasy dishes and certainly look very uncoordinated trying to light a
charcoal stove? You went to college but can communicate to locals essentially
only as a child could even though you’re supposed to be doing all this
development work? Definitely one of the things I have learned here is to let go
of my attachment to identities like that and make space for other ones that are
just as important and just as much a part of who I am. It is scary to be put in
a situation where the things that you thought defined who were are no longer
true. But how can a girl call herself a foodie
when the thrice-daily fare is rice and beans and the appearance of a cucumber
in the village is exciting news? Could I really be a foodie when the one time I tried to branch out in Betsiaka and cook
the fady (taboo) garbanzo beans I
almost burned down my house, as was made clear by the billowing smoke and
gathering crowd outside when I returned from the market. Anyway, this is
example is kind of extreme and drawn-out. But I have learned that identities
are 100% contextual and when I made the first realization that I couldn’t call
myself a foodie anymore, I didn’t care. It didn’t make me feel less good or be
less interested in food, I just didn’t feel like defending its culture was in
some way defending myself. (In the spirit of full disclosure, dating an Italian
probably called into question my own “foodie” identity in a major way as well…
I just can’t compete! And don’t want to.)
“Identity isn’t ultimately a bond of
unifying sameness. It’s a bid to control which forms of difference people
perceive.” –Thich Nhat Hanh
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| All eyes on you |
3 3. How Britney was feeling during the umbrella
incident
Cherie!
Mon amour! Tres sexy! Oh vazaha! Oh
madam! Tu est s’epouser? Vous-allez ou? Vous-allez taxi? Pousse? Bonjour,
vazaha! Salut vazaha! VAZAHA! VAZAHA!!! Etes-vouz mariee? Buon giorno bella! I
love you! Oooh la la! SOARAVO SOARAVO! Helene! Anao-tiako! Je t’aime! Amore!
Izy vady-ko vazaha! (“This is my white wife”)
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| Going with the crowd on Easter |
4 4. To follow
“In a world full of leadership conferences
and being told you’re special, I count myself fortunate to have been taught a
thing or two about following. Like leading, it’s a skill, and unlike leading,
it’s one that you’ll actually get to use on a daily basis… It turns out that
most positions in life, even really big ones, aren’t really so much about
leadership. Being successful and certainly being happy comes from honing your
skills in working with other people.” –Ann Patchett
The Peace Corps recruits Leaders.
Self-starters. Trailblazers. These are good qualities. They are certainly vital
to Peace Corps service. Getting a community excited about a non-sexy project
like sleeping under bed nets; not pooping in the forest; mobilizing enough
people; gathering enough momentum to start a project, much less finish that
project, require true leadership, go-get ‘em attitude, and persistence. But following,
we’ll say followship, has been just
as important for my work as a volunteer. We’ve all written on some cover-letter
or resume about our great “teamwork” and ability to “work with a diverse range
of people.” (I usually do). I think though that most people are just mediocre
team players. (I certainly was). “OK” team players share the work-load,
understand group dynamics well, often are even good leaders, and are pretty
easy to get along with. There are certainly bad team players. We all think we’re
good because we’re not them (doesn’t
do his/her work or takes over the whole project, isn’t fun to be around, etc.).
But great team-players have great followship, which is a true skill. This
person’s ego truly is not a factor in group dynamics because he or she
understands his or her success depends on the team success. Success and
productivity are completely interlinked with teamwork and group happiness and
this person knows how to balance the scale. I vaguely started to understand
this during the last year of college but I certainly never was a person who
excelled at making this happen consistently.
Peace Corps requires followship. Letting
yourself accept help from Malagasy people while you are still trying to figure
out basic survival skills (and then for the rest of your service when you’re
still trying to figure that out…) accomplishes so much more than just your
basic survival. It directly addresses the second and third Peace Corps goal of
sharing Malagasy and American cultures, integrates you into the community, and
helps you figure out the right balance of integrating and also maintaining your
self-identity. Along with this absolutely goes the importance of speaking to
someone in their own language. Being able to successfully do development work requires
an intimate understanding of how all parts of Malagasy society works and
gaining that understanding absolutely requires following. One of the most
effective leaders I know, Marin Tollefson, is also one of the best followers I
have ever met and her magic comes from understanding followship is essential to
leadership.
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| National Highway |
5 5. You really didn’t build that
I was out of the country for the whole
Obama “You didn’t build that” situation, but I do know that whatever in
particular he was referring to (roads, bridges, businesses) doesn’t matter
because he’s right. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. If you are
healthy or educated or rich (or all three), you definitely didn’t build that.
Not all of it. Obviously credit’s due all over the place and certainly to the
hard work of “fill-in-the-blank” owners. But after observing almost all good
efforts on the parts of NGOs, volunteers, and community leaders failing because
of lack of infrastructure, it is clear that those roads and bridges are
essential to success of any kind. In fact, quality and widespread roads and
bridges are the most important building block of development. (Yeah, it sounds
oversimplified. But I’m just going to go ahead and make the bold statement
while I’m 25 and in the Peace Corps). Roads lead to more frequent
communication, then reliable transportation, easier access to health services,
individual mobilization, urban concentrations, incentives for education, and on
and on. All these concerns are highly related obviously and development isn’t
some linear projector…but educational, health, and environmental concerns seem
to me areas that can only be fully addressed with the existence of basic
quality infrastructure. I see that every day when I teach people to take a
malaria test if they have a fever but the clinic is out of malaria tests and
the mud road leading to the nearest hospital is 30 kilometers and you depend on
farming rice every day to make a living… We still gotta build it!
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| Andilana Beach, Nosy Be |
6 6. This too shall pass…
They say Peace Corps is a roller coaster.
They even give us a chart divided into the different 3-4 month emotional
segments during Peace Corps throughout the whole service. (Apparently right now
I’m supposed to be realizing the own limitations of my time left, acknowledging
unmet goals, and making plans for the states… check?). The chart is actually
pretty accurate in creepy you-don’t-know me sort of way. I even got to certain
points where I just had to look to the chart to tell me what I should be
feeling. Anyway, it’s a definite roller coaster. The days are absolutely
endless and the weeks fly by. Months become the new weeks. (Basically it’s
almost 4th of July here). You hit your highest highs and lowest
lows. You are paralyzed with loneliness and then almost manic with discovery
and joy. You witness profound beauty and truly wretched ugliness. Your
priorities shift, your relationships change and sometimes end, and your
fundamental values tested. The only consistent thing is that the next stage
always comes. But what they always tell you before leaving you at site for that
first night remains true: “if you can do tonight, you can do any night.”
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| Accidentally cutting the thing clean off |
7 7. Failure is not only an option, but a
requirement
If I had a split personality it would
absolutely be my (admittedly much more dominant) stubborn, a-type, driven, and
did I say stubborn? half and my hippy, good-time peace love and everyone wins…
(okay everyone wins isn’t even usually part of my hippie self). So I have
always listened to people who talk about the importance of failing over and
over again to eventually succeed and have agreed. Genuinely agreed. But the
dominant “failure is not an option” side dictated most of how I approached my
own life and work. That’s not necessarily bad. I think that attitude is
responsible for many things of which I am proud. But after FAILING and then
failing, failing, and failing some more in many different instances here before
finding success, I do think failing is absolutely crucial in allowing you keep
refocusing your strategy to achieve a goal and adjusting the goal itself. I
“failed” to finish the well project in Betsiaka. There’s still a clean-water
shortage there. But they now have identified getting clean water as a community
priority and have a leader and tentative action plan in place. They also have tools
to identify other community priorities for the future projects. I have a much
clearer understanding of how to approach getting a project started and finished
in a small-village setting and do health work here in Madagascar.
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| Nothing to do but wait |
8 8. Patience
The cliché one. But what is the other
option when one-hour brousse ride turns into a 26-hour marathon and you have no
choice but to wait? Or when buying every different type of fruit or vegetable
in the market is a whole new bargaining ordeal. When the boat was supposed to
leave… yesterday. When a meeting has been scheduled and then rescheduled every
three days for a month. When asking for directions to anything elicits solely
the answers of “ao, ary, eto, or any” (all of which have almost interchangeable
definitions of “there”) and a vague shrug of the lips in a general direction
even after pressing for specifics. Maybe it’s just learning to give up control
when you have one. Anyway, I think my blood pressure stays a little lower
during patience-testing situations. I know I’m not just better at hiding
impatience because my face still unfortunately displays unconscious and
automatic displeasure at unpleasant tastes, smells, and sounds (lookin at you,
woman singing next to me in the brousse).
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| Aqualand |
9 9. To live
with uncertainty
The corny one. I really don’t like
uncertainty. I like to know exactly what my next move is and what to do to get
there. I think most people probably do. But here I’ve learned to live with it
and even sometimes enjoy it. I guess it actually started before even coming to
Madagascar when I accepted the invitation to “serve as a community health
volunteer in Madagascar…” and that’s pretty much it. Then being dropped off in
a small village and told to “to community health development” for the next two
years came with another big dose of uncertainty. But especially for the first
year, looking at the calendar with absolutely nothing written in for 12
straight months was a lesson in living with uncertainty. During low points,
having no direction was a little heartbreaking. But after living here for two
years and having a little more certainty about the next couple months of my
life, I now feel like I have spent all this time biking up a really long hill,
sometimes feeling great and sometimes really wanting to quit, but never really
being able to see where I was, and now I am at the top of this really awesome
view of everything around me, both forward and back. There have been several
times in my life I have felt so certain of what I thought and of the future,
only to look back completely shocked how certain I had been. I definitely
prefer being able to have a plan, but I think I’ve learned to be comfortable
with a little more uncertainty knowing that eventually I’ll get to the top of
the hill.
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| Homemade apple/cranberry brochettes confuse the grill ladies but taste delicious |
1 10. The Willingness to look stupid
A co-worker and I arrived at a training
last weekend and after sitting down and drinking coffee with his mother I had
to poop. I asked them if they had a kabone at the house. (No.) Nearby? (No). In
the village? (No.) So you go in the forest? (Yes). Where? (far, dirty). Uhh…
After confirming that I truly did need to poop, my co-worker decided to take me
in search of a “clean” spot in the woods. His house being at the other end of
the village, he led me through the line of houses with people cooking on porches
and drinking coffee (or liquor, more likely), looking up with the usual
staring, pointing, and commenting. In Malagasy culture it is fomba (tradition) to greet everyone you
see on the road, except in larger towns. If you are particularly friendly with
this person, you ask hoaizanao? (where
are you going?) My co-worker decided the correct response to this question was
to explain the entire situation. “Where are you taking your vazaha?” Everyone
wanted to know. “I’m taking her to the woods to poop because we don’t have any
kabones!” “Hahahahaha! The vazaha is going to poop!”
It should have been one of the most
embarrassing moments of my life. But an hour later, almost 100 people showed up
to my malaria training and we had one of the most successful programs so far.
A willingness to look stupid here is key.
Everyone already thinks I’m very weird for reasons ranging from the fact that I
don’t cook rice in my house every day to the fact that I exercise to the fact
that I use sunscreen and eat peanut butter. But with all eyes on you all the
time, every truly embarrassing thing you do is a public event. And it turns
out, the willingness to do embarrassing things like essentially parade through
a village with a loudspeaker announcing your impending bowel movements or stand
in front of a room of 85 teenagers doing condom demonstrations is a pretty good
tool for getting people interested in what you’re doing.
Happy May!
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