This last year has flown by. I will be finishing service within a month and I am trying to process my emotions. They've literally waited three years to emerge in my head. Maybe it's a survival mechanism. Who knows.
Since the last time I wrote, I had just arrived in Madagascar after spending an interesting month in America. Thankfully, from Tana, I got a ride in the Peace Corps car that took me straight to my doorstep so I didn't have to deal with the embarrassing walk back through the center of the village with a ton of luggage and be forced to say hi to everybody while jet lagged and anxious. Upon arrival, I felt maladjusted, unmotivated, and almost scared to walk outside.
I remember writing a little Facebook post the night before flying out of America, something along the lines of "I will hit the ground running my third year!" I ended up not hitting any ground running. I came back disillusioned and slightly paranoid and really cynical. Especially of people I had previously trusted in my community to be an advocate for my work. My community had begun taking advantage of me and the reality of what I envisioned my role to be versus the reality of how my community was just using me vs how I am perceived professionally as a Peace Corps volunteer among other volunteers (hardworking, integrated, loves poor people, etc.) was really irritating me.
The truth is the real lack of acceptable accomplishments vs. what people thought I was accomplishing and the fact that the only thing that matters in development is people's perception of what they think you did was really agitating me - I don't like lying, especially to those who have no voice. To others I was this local hero, but I did not feel the personal spark of satisfaction with whatever I was not accomplishing. The feedback I was getting from my counterparts were also not living up to my high expectations. I wanted them to understand my work and finally achieve some enlightened aha! moment or some kind of breakthrough. I wasn't getting that but I knew it was possible but at the same time it was too late and I was starting not give a shit anymore.
Unfortunately, when I returned to Madagascar the window of opportunity of me caring had passed. I had decided to cut the cord and people who didn't get it, I thought, would feel the pangs of loss when they truly experienced how sudden and abrupt I could turn cold. They'd experience the complete opposite of the always smiling, naive energy I usually project - which really in itself is me protecting myself. I feel that some judgments need to be safe so that they can be purely and critically evaluated. It's strategy really.
So I stayed in this dark place for months upon my return. And being ill made it worse.
For those who don't live with me everyday, my daily routine before my vacation in America included me walking to the Catholic church and buying a half kilo of chicken everyday from the nuns. I would make chicken ginger broth soup everyday. Why? I don't know. It was good. easy. predictable. kept me healthy. Eating meat everyday keeps me literally from disappearing off the face of the earth because my skinny ass really could. My metabolism is that fast.
Some of the only people who know I eat this half a kilo of chicken everyday are my two neighborhood kids who I put into school by importing a few computers from America for some secondary school scholarships - Lepapa and Bota, if you've been following throughout the last few years these names are familiar to you. I had taken them under my wing and even let them stay in my home for the last year or so. Their living situation nearby was not working out and I realized that by putting them into school they needed a safe home environment to study - seven people in a house the size of a small closet sharing a bowl of rice is not optimal for homework. And then you have just me in my house less than 100 feet away, which is the size of two of their houses - which could probably fit 14 members of their family. Something the Madagascar countryside has taught me is you share - even when you have nothing, especially when you have nothing. So I definitely don't have nothing so I decided I would share. So that was that. We shared meals, I helped with their homework, and they would listen and talk to my family stateside when they'd Skype in on my iPhone. We became a little family unit.
The day I came back from America, I noticed Lepapa didn't stand around and greet me like everyone else. It was around 5pm and the sun was setting and the first thing he did without telling anyone as soon as the Peace Corps car drove up and unloaded me was grab my bike, race to the Catholic church to get me my half kilo of chicken. While I spent a couple hours loitering in the yard socializing with my excited neighbors he hurried inside the house and prepared my chicken broth and ginger soup. Later that week, when I came down with giardia he ordered Bota to cook me dinner and carried my bike upstairs into the house because he knew I would never be able to carry it myself. I was bed-ridden and literally shitting my brains out. My health stayed this way for a long time. All I did was sit on my ass and roll from side to side for probably three months without really seriously working or doing anything productive. He and Bota literally babied me back to health, fetched my water, sweeped my floors, did my dishes, walked to the market to buy my food, returned every bit of my change. No one told them to. I certainly didn't. They never said so but I suspect they knew I was having a rough time readjusting. The funny thing is I don't think I've ever been treated and cared for this way even by my real American friends and family.
Now you know why this story is called Happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment