Sunday, 10 July 2005
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Reflections at One Year
A few months ago I travelled to the capital city to participate in the swearing-in of my "sister" training group--meaning the group of volunteers who arrive exactly a year after you to begin work in the same fields, in this case water sanitation, agriculture, and natural resource management. I watched this mirror of the beginning of my own experience unfold--the same boring speeches, the same oath, the same anxiousness to finish training and move in to my real village to begin "work," whatever that was going to be. I did my best to answer their nervous questions about how to stay healthy, about day-to-day life once you were on your own, about whether it would all be worth it, just as elder volunteers had done their best to answer my same questions with encouragement and reassurance a year ago. And I thought about what I would not be telling them: about the inevitable self-doubt, frustration, and lonliness that alternates with the times of elation and complete contentment, oftentimes within the space of one day--things they think they know, but don't really, not yet.
A little over a year ago I arrived in my village, the sun blazing and a sandstorm blowing in off the Sahara. Every volunteer remembers watching the white Peace Corps Landcruiser driving off and waving goodbye that first day, surrounded by village well-wishers you don't know and can't understand, with two words ringing in your head: now what??? In some ways, the past fifteen months seem like the fastest in my life, while in others it sometimes feels like I've never known anything else. One thing's for certain: I've learned more about myself and the world in the last year than in the previous twenty-three. Likewise I've experienced more wild things, been to more interesting places, and had the privilege of meeting more fascinating people than at any time before. I've survived unspeakably bad transportation, sandstorms, waking up next to poisonous snakes and scorpions, Malaria, and three months of 130 degrees without electricity or running water. I've eaten porcupine and rat and feral cat and snake and God knows what else, encountered baboons and alligators, ridden camels. Up here in the desert I've met tourists from all over the world, thrill seekers traversing Africa by motorcycle, aid workers, Christian and Islamic missionaries, linguists, national Geographic writers, Arabic traders, famous musicians, four Ambassadors and two presidents. I've seen the dusty town of Douentza (where I bike each weekend for market) go from one with no paved roads and spotty electricity, to one that tunes in to "The West Wing" every night, has access to satellite internet, and talks of coming cell phones--and yet which is still made of mud, with no household sanitation or piped water. I've lived amongst Moors, Songhrai, Bambara, and Toureg people, and have studied the languages of the Dogon and Fulani. And I've witnessed a region decimated by locusts, watched as half my village packed up and left.
Even the busiest volunteer has lots of time to read and write letters, but most of all you have endless hours to think. There's no hiding--not from yourself or the world--behind the technological distractions of the West, TV, internet, movies, telephones. I've discovered that I am a somewhat better student of languages than I previously thought, though not nearly as patient a teacher as I had assumed. I've discovered weaknesses I didn't know I had, but also a deeper well of strength. I've learned to appreciate the small things here--the very small things--a ripe tomato, a cup of cool water, a crust of bread, a late night conversation with friends, laughter. I've learned the sacredness of a bowl of food, of family, of life for the simple sake of living. I've had to reconsider my former notions of love, community, the individual, obligation, hardship, endurance, faith, family, development, and progress. When I first got here it was like, "Oh look at the cute little lambs!" while now it's more like "Get in my belly you tasty little thing!" At first I saw all the world around me here through a Western lens of poverty and death. Now I barely notice the hardships through the cultural wealth and overall vitality of life that surrounds me here.
Year One is mostly prep work: cultural integration, needs assessment, language learning, collecting funding. Now the real work begins. If my second year (or, if I'm honest with myself, the remaining short nine months) is even half as unpredictable as the first, it should be quite a time...
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