August 26, 2013
“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman
Since returning from my stateside vacation earlier this month, I’ve noticed a big change in me. Somehow, in the span of a week, I mellowed. After being gone for nearly a fortnight I didn’t check my bed for spiders before crawling inside, a ritual I’ve cultivated for 11 months now. Despite knowing that anything that doesn’t get moved every 24 hours in my house becomes potential housing for a creepy crawly, I didn’t bother to check all their regular hangouts before diving a hand into bags or clothes on the shelf (I know by now you’re asking “where is Wendy and what have you done with her?!”) In fact, I found a thick black hairy arachnid on my hand yesterday and simply shook it onto the floor, not bothering to see if there were others on me. And it’s not just the spiders. Mini beetles in the popcorn stash are harmless once fried in hot oil, right (probably a delicacy somewhere too)? You know you’ve reached a whole new level of tranquilo when your answer is “yes” as I had to admit this week. I consulted my best PCV friend with this question. She agreed wholeheartedly and added that it’s simply a source of more protein (at least I don’t have to carry this protein 17k from the grocery store!) and said “Wait til you start eating off the floor!” My reply: “Ummm, that started last week.” For the germ-a-phobe I used to be, never did I see myself submitting to the 3 second rule in PY. Ever. Even though I have a fancy, fairly clean, tile floor, unlike many PCVs whose floors are hard-to-clean-cement or straight soil, I did not think I’d ever be so nonchalant. This, in the same week I was picking dead bugs out of my stash of beans given to me by a generous neighbor. Not exactly the self-development progress I’d hoped to make during my time in PY but I’m sure it’ll serve me somehow. We work with what we’ve got.
Last week all the volunteers in my group traveled with our community contacts to the Chaco (the Northwestern chunk of PY) for a few days of training. I was so excited to realize that my language skills had improved significantly since our last gathering two months ago. I pretty much was able to follow most of the conversations – ooooh what a feeling, halelujah! At the end of those few days of intensive Spanish conversation, however, my brain started to feel like a 20-car pile up with all those new words and phrases overflowing my mental parking lot, backed up waiting for a parking space in the memory banks. I’ve learned this is a good sign…it means things are getting in there! Hopefully the valet driver can also retrieve these when the time calls for it. haha
Despite being assured winter is almost over, today’s high in my site was a raw, rainy 45F. I try to ignore this fact and focus instead on the week’s forecast which promises temps in the 80s and 90s. It’s been raining for days and it’s been equally as many days since I’ve had a shower, washed dishes, taken my hat off, or opened my front door except to shoo away cows trying to eat the oregano on my porch. It was so raw even the cows were shivering! I will welcome the sun and sweat with open arms. Bring it. And hurry. These warm clothes I’ve worn 24/7 really need a break. In an effort to walk my own talk and focus on the positives in life, I sought gratitude in phone calls with friends, hot chocolate with honey harvested from my own bees, lingering over a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee (ok, it might have been 4 cups today), the luxury of reading, skyping with my mom, eating my fill of hot, freshly made soup from the bounty of my garden that has gone totally gangbusters since a week ago (did you realize carrot greens smell like carnations?), then rounding out the day with popcorn sprinkled with fried beetles (if you add some dry basil it helps camouflage the bodies). I’m a lucky gal.
I haven’t made too many faux pas in a while (that I’m aware of), perhaps because I’ve been cooped up in the house (there’s an upside to everything) but I did make a good one related to my birthday (go big or go home, I always say). While visiting a family the week prior to my birthday, the husband and wife were commenting on my special day coming the following week and kept saying something about “invitado” this and “asado” that and was I going to have that cake made from beans that I love so well? (It tastes like chocolate but has not a speck of chocolate in it. Deelish!) What I didn’t realize is that in PY, it’s the person celebrating the birthday who puts on her own party, cooks the food (asado means BBQ), bakes her own cake and invites the town to the fiesta at her house. Oops. I had been expecting my host family to put on a lunch for me and bake the famous bean cake since they’ve been talking about it all year (or so I thought!) It wasn’t until the day AFTER my birthday and the birthday-celebration-that-never-happened that another volunteer explained the custom. Oops again. I had let them down. NOW I understood that they were actually telling me to be sure to invite THEM to my party at my house and the family had given me a kilo of beans so I could make the cake for this fiesta that never happened. Oops…again. Fortunately, as an outsider I’m forgiven for most of my missteps. But I think they all felt a little embarrassed that I didn’t get a party at all. No worries though! We’ll make up for it next year!
Here’s something I threw out to my friends this week:
What stories do you tell yourself about you, your abilities, your worth? Have you checked their validity lately? How many are so negative you wouldn’t dream of saying them to your best friend or beloved? Maybe it’s time to tell some better stories.
I love this. I think all of us can relate to how easy it is to beat ourselves up over our perceived shortcomings and point out areas where we lack. Interestingly, we may not even realize this habit but we do know we would never want to treat our friends and loved ones the way we often treat ourselves. My Peace Corps service has brought my own self-defeating habits to my stark attention and it’s been an incredibly humbling experience. Your pride gets taken down a notch or two or four. You realize you have far more to learn from your host country nationals than they have to learn from you. Sometimes, it is far better to listen and learn than speak and never be wiser. Language barriers can infantilize a person. When you’ve led a life feeling fairly competent in your everyday work, tasks, and understanding of your culture and surroundings then suddenly find yourself feeling completely inadequate on sometimes even the most basic levels, it is disconcerting. It makes you question yourself, your worth, your ability, your stamina to see this through. It holds up a mirror that reveals facets of yourself you never knew existed. You must look at it everyday. Sometimes we are proud of what we see. Sometimes not. Even though you might have been going through life working really hard on your problem areas, being kind, being aware of your wake, striving to grow and learn, extending compassion and loving kindness, sometimes those blind spots just hit you upside the head and you never saw them coming. Peace Corps is hard this way but it is one of the best damn eye openers I’ve ever had the good fortune to be gifted. So I invite you to consider the questions above. While there’s always work to be done on ourselves, is there room for you to be more loving and gentle as you go about it?
This week’s takeaways: pride in standing up for myself and and my principles with courage to speak my peace without flinching coupled with the strength to extend compassion during a difficult situation; joy in having someone tell me my words made a difference for them; assurance that the universe delivers who and what we need exactly when we need them (including a cheap taxi that appeared out of nowhere and really was an angel of mercy on a rainy day); grateful for opportunities to practice in areas where I struggle knowing it will make me stronger and wiser; appreciating people in my life who really have my back when I need them; knowledge that I’ve made great progress in loving myself and the gifts I have to offer, blessed with a great mom who’s always there; appreciative of a super boss; never again in my life will I take for granted good coffee, indoor plumbing, an indoor stove, central heat, or electricity. Even on the hardest days, I consider myself blessed with the privilege of being here, sculpting my life, writing my own script, and making my dreams come alive.
Somewhere in Paraguay 