Trying Again

From the day I applied to the Peace Corps, I had an idealized vision of what it meant to be a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I saw myself living in a mud hut in Africa.  No electricity, no running water, no phone, no internet, no facebook.  It would be a journey of self-discovery, one that would turn me into a better person.

The first shock came when I found out that Peace Corps was sending me to Guatemala.  I wondered how I could really disconnect myself from the outside world while living so close to home.  Then I found out that volunteers in Guatemala are given cell phones.  And that most have internet access at their houses.  And just like that, my dreams of a simpler life were washed away.

When I received my first site, I was excited that Peace Corps had chosen to give me a more rural, isolated site.  While Comitancillo wasn’t Sub-Saharan Africa, it was a community where need was prevalent, and I felt at least a little bit disconnected from the United States.  Except that I wasn’t.  I skyped with friends and family almost every night.  I was on facebook, e-mail, pinterest, among others.  I began to feel bogged down by my own connectivity.  All I kept thinking was, “this isn’t really Peace Corps.  I should be reading a book by candlelight, not downloading movies to watch on my laptop.  I should be cooking over an open flame, not baking cookies in my oven.”

Slowly, I became accustomed to the idea that my Peace Corps experience would be defined by different things than I had originally expected.  I realized that Peace Corps did not have to be some otherworldly experience that was completely disconnected from the reality I grew up in.  While it wasn’t what I had dreamed about or hoped for, I began to love my work and my life in Guatemala.  I formed a new idealized vision of what my Peace Corps service would look like.  I made plans for completing the rest of my two years in Comitancillo.

And then, that idealized vision, like the one before it, came crashing down.  In February I was evacuated from Comitancillo and reassigned to Aldea Chivarreto.  I was heartbroken, to say the least.  I was being pulled out of my isolated rural dreamland and thrown into a community only 1 ½ hours outside the second biggest city in Guatemala.  A community that has such a large population living in the US that I regularly found myself having conversations with people in English.  I think I cried for about a week.

I jumped into my work in Chivarreto, hoping to find the same happiness I found in Comitancillo.  Unfortunately, Chiva wasn’t Comi, and I had to adjust my expectations for the rest of my service.  I didn’t love my new site, but I tirelessly worked to plan and execute a large career fair and at the same time worked hard with my schools to implement the Youth in Development curriculum.  After receiving a training on project design and management, I threw myself into a large infrastructure project in my favorite school.  Working hand-in-hand with the director, we planned an ecologically friendly computer lab that would greatly benefit the youth of this poor community.  I was happy to have something meaningful to focus on.  Once again, I was working on something that would really define my service.

And then a crazy guy broke into my sitemate’s house and trashed the place.  And once again my Peace Corps experience came screeching to a halt.  After Christopher came to spend Thanksgiving with me, Peace Corps told me to stick around the office for a while instead of going back to site.  A few days later, they told me they were evacuating me from Chiva because it had been deemed “unsafe for female volunteers.”  I found myself facing the challenge of starting over yet again, with only six months left to achieve anything.  Peace Corps offered me Interrupted Service, which was basically an easy out.  I could have gone home with the full honors of a volunteer that completed their full term.  Walked away. Washed my hands of it all.  Quit.  I just couldn’t do it.  I felt like I hadn’t yet given all I had to give.  I knew I would regret it if I didn’t complete my full term.  Around this time, a friend of mine, Matt Dalio, sent me an e-mail with the following quote:

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.”

Mary Anne Radmacher -

And so I decided to try again.

And so, this was the beginning of a three-week stint living in the hotel near the Peace Corps office.  I was lucky enough to be able to take private Spanish classes and get some much-needed quiet time to work on my graduate school applications.  During this time, my project manager, Rocío, gave me some options for a new site and invited me to come visit the various communities.  After a few site visits, I made up my mind: I would complete the last six months of my service in San Martín Jilotepeque, Chimaltenango.

I was not sad about leaving Chiva, but I was heartbroken about the prospect of losing the computer lab project in Cuesta del Aire.  After a number of meetings with Rocío and other Peace Corps staff members, I convinced them to let me continue my project, while signing Rich (my former sitemate still living in Chiva) on as the project lead.  We finished all the paperwork to solicit the final funding from USAID on Thursday last week, and now we’re waiting for the decision of the Small Grants Committee.

At the same time, I moved to San Martín on December 20^th and jumped into my new job placement working with the Oficina Municipal de la Juventud (Municipal Youth Office).  This office has formed 26 youth leadership groups in the rural communities of San Martín.  They train these youths in topics similar to the topics I had been teaching in the middle schools – Self-esteem, goals, careers, leadership, sexuality, drug and alcohol use, violence, etc.  I was assigned to this office to support them in the development of certain trainings and projects, while also learning about their work model, which Peace Corps is interested in replicating in other sites in the future.

Horseback riding with my new counterpart, Briyi

As difficult as it was to change sites again, I really love San Martín.  I moved in with a 93-year-old woman who is basically the Guatemalan version of Charlotte (my grandmother).  She is super active, caring, and smart.  She reads the newspaper every day and we’ve had some really interesting conversations.  Her granddaughter, great-granddaughter and great-grandson also live in the house with us.  It’s a really nice house, with a hot shower and lots of creature comforts.  San Martín itself is very nice.  It has a warm climate, which I had missed out on in Comi and Chiva.  I live right in the center of town and can buy almost anything I need without walking more than a few blocks.  I’ve been able to run a lot here, and there’s even a track – albeit a paved one – at the soccer stadium.  I’m also less than 1 ½ hours from Antigua, which is pretty nice.

My new bedroom.  Complete with fake fireplace

My life here feels less like Peace Corps than ever before.  I’m working 8-hour days, mostly in an office (with wi-fi!), running and taking a hot shower every day, and eating almost like I did in the states.  I recently started thinking again about my initial idealized vision of what Peace Corps would be, and how it has changed.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have formed a new idealized vision of Peace Corps service: Your service is what you make of it.  Regardless of the house you live in, or the office, school, or fields you work in, you have been sent to make a difference in a community that needs your help.  You can have a cell phone, computer, hot shower and warm bed, and still be a “real” Peace Corps Volunteer.  If you don’t get to complete your service in one site, see it as an opportunity to touch the lives of even more people.  I am a real Peace Corps Volunteer, three times over.  I have done meaningful work in two communities, and am beginning to do so in yet another.  At the end of every day of my Peace Corps service, I tell myself that I’ll try again tomorrow.  Because that’s why I came here.

I honestly can't think of a caption for this one...  Make one up!