Musings during MSC

I have this habit of finding lessons learned in every experience and moment. I started this when I realized it was easier to try and list lessons that I learned, even when it seemed there were none, then trying to find light of a situation when there is none. Since coming to Peace Corps I have been placed in many moments when I just have to remember that every situation has a lesson to be learned, even when they may seem impossible to see at the time. Then there are bits when lessons seem to just appear and there are too many to count. Trainings are those bits for me. Trainings are fabulous, because it gives my group a chance to come together and not only brainstorm and discuss what we have gone through and where we are going next, but more of just a chance to chill and hang out with potentially the only people who will ever understand what crazy, emotional journey you are on. After getting back to site I was able to reflect on the past week at MSC and I drew some conclusions about my service, my group, and myself half way through our service. Here are the Top 5 that I came up with (in no particular order):

Struggles are in many ways unique, but there is also a shared union that is almost never identified unless put together.

I came to MSC with a bit of a grudge towards my community. Not that my first year was bad by any means, but I was struggling with how to feel truly a part of it. I felt like I had done a good job on integrating for myself, however I also saw how other volunteers were integrating and working, and I felt like a failure at many points. Should I blame myself for not starting programs, or an outside source? I think it’s a shared blame in many respects, but it’s easier to push that on someone else instead of taking control of your own life. It’s much easier for me to put blame on my Director for not giving me a classroom for my club than it is for me to push myself to take control and find a space for it, instead I did a lot of giving up and shrinking back to my comfort zone my first year.

That is just my professional struggle in the classroom, putting blame on the school system, the tests, the grading, the other teachers, or the students. In many ways there is a reasoning there, but I came to MSC with a sense that I was the only one dealing with these problems. This doesn’t even address the issues I deal with socially and culturally such as harassment and being a white woman in this society. I came to MSC with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, only having heard stories from my close friends of their struggles. I came wanting to know what everyone else was dealing with at site.

I know it’s dangerous to compare services, but I was curious to see what others stories consisted of. What I discovered during our formal sharing sessions and our informal eating and drinking sessions is that in many ways all our experiences are common. Most girls have dealt with the same harassment I have, to differing degrees. Most guys have all dealt the same “macho male” stereotype they then have to break. All the people in my group have struggled with classroom management, inefficiency of clubs, and how to balance what we were sent here to do with what is humanly possible.

We held a gender fishbowl to discuss gender issues at our sites and when I sat there and listened to my fellow volunteers I realized just how unique each of our situations are, yet how similar they are to what others in other countries experience. I can not say I have had the exact situation on the street or in the teachers lounge as a fellow G11 volunteer, but I can sympathize more than someone serving in a different country or someone back home. It’s crazy how similar yet different experiences can be, and how we interact with them.

            Because I am geographically close to only a few volunteers and unless I make a conscious effort to talk to someone, there is a chance I will not interact with many of the volunteers in my group until COS conference in another 9 months. That is the same span of time between IST and MSC. This means that I probably won’t interact with more struggles of my fellow group members until we are almost done. Our experience as a whole group is a big puzzle with each person holding a piece of the puzzle. It can move and change with people and numbers, but it continues to stay a whole puzzle. Each of us has a unique experience with different struggles and triumphs, but they all fit in a way that only the other puzzle pieces quite get.

Peace Corps service can be summed up in elevator speech anecdotes that range from side splitting hilarious to grab a tissue sad.

I realized this a little while I was visiting home this past summer, but it really came to be noticed during MSC week. While I was home people would ask me about my service and I had to give them short little anecdotes about my time a year in. However, many of my stories fell flat because no matter how much I might find them hilarious or sad, with no cultural context they are just words coming out of someone’s mouth.

We had a session during MSC called “Introduction to 3^rd Goal” which is sharing Ethiopian culture with Americans. This was basically a chance to get up and share a funny or inspirational story about your service. It was a light-hearted hour and a half session where I got to sit and hear stories from my fellow volunteers about their year so far. I understand that it’s almost impossible to pick 1 story to tell. How do you explain all the weird, quirky, annoying, sad things that happen every day in our lives? How do you pick 1 or 2 stories that show your life at site every day when there are probably 11 or 12?

During lunch and dinner you sit together and discuss the day or the night, but those stories almost always come back to site and the random little happenings because that’s been your life for a year and you finally have a chance to tell them to someone other than your best friend that has heard them a million times already. Especially sitting with people you don’t normally sit next to or talk to gives you a chance to hear and laugh and sympathize with other stories. Sometimes they are so similar to yours, and other times you can’t even imagine how that occurred. Then it’s your turn, and you get to dazzle the table with a 2-minute story of getting gorshed, a wedding, or almost getting run over by an ox.

Your stories might not always be funny or quirky, they could be a story of struggle or anger or sadness, because our service is full of those as well. You may choose not to share those to anyone other than family or friends, or not at all. It’s much easier to get through laughter than tears, but those stories do exist and sometimes the anecdotes are the easiest and most painless to get through. It’s good to start practicing those stories at MSC, even with a year left before going back stateside, so you know how to tell the stories your life is made of without having them fall flat with friends and family.

It’s your choice whether to look back with pessimism or look forward with optimism.

As I already mentioned, everyone in my group had struggles this first year. I don’t even think the most optimistic and happy person came in without feeling defeated in some part of their service. Whether it’s just feeling like it’s been a long time, to getting sick, to missing home, to feeling like you failed your students, school, or neighborhood, or something more serious with harassment or safety. I came in feeling defeated in many ways and after hearing people in my groups success stories I felt even more defeated. I couldn’t even start an English club and there are people with 4 clubs going every week, how do I feel good about my service so far with that on my plate?

But then after discussing the past year and the next year, I realized that in many ways I’m at a better place emotionally than some of my fellow volunteers. Although I have had struggles, I am willing and ready to move past them and I’m using my past year as a chance to really grow and change for my next year in service. This is the difference between some of my fellow group members and myself. We came into country with 69 people and because of various reasons we came to MSC with 50. I hope that number sticks to COS conference, but I’m very aware it won’t.

I have never seriously considered going home and ET’ing. I have had days that have been a struggle enough for me to consider it for a brief moment, but every time I do, I sleep on it, talk it out, cry it out, and then realize that I’m gaining things from being here that outweigh the easiness of going home. This journey isn’t for everyone, and if you are struggling to the point where you are unhappy every day, then I think it is admirable to leave. We were talking about why people stay when they are suffering and a lot of people talked about pride. I understand that completely, but I also think your mental and physical health needs to come first.

For me, my physical and mental health is not in the balance serving here. I have my difficult days, but I am also loving my service. I have so many random elevator moments and anecdotes that make up for the hardships I face. I wrote a letter to myself during PST that we opened during MSC and I wrote “I look to the future with a cup of optimism and a spoonful of realism”, and I think that’s so true. I am looking forward to my next year with optimism and what projects I want to do, along with some realism of what I can actually do. However, I refuse to look back on my service with pessimism, only the reminder of lessons I have learned to help me on my next year.

Being the guinea pig group is more work for you, but the following groups will benefit greatly.

Much of this week was reflection on what we have learned the past year in the classroom and what would have been helpful for ourselves. G11 was the pilot program, or as we call ourselves the guinea pigs of this PELLE program in Ethiopia. Basically meaning they threw us into training and teaching with no real idea of how it would work. The Peace Corps Education team did an incredible job with what they were given, but with absolutely no feedback it was impossible to design trainings and materials until they got feedback. We are that feedback.

This meant that many of our sessions were not developing ideas and materials for our own group, but they are giving our successes and failures to the education team to give to the groups that follow. There were quite a few times during sessions where I think we all felt a little used and annoyed. I mean, we went through the struggles of having not much, why can’t the other groups do the same thing? But then we realized how much better the program would be and how much more we could help other students and teachers by giving them our materials and helping develop the program through our own experiences.

Many of the sessions were gathering material goods as well as ideas and improvements. They heard our complaints about Peace Corps and Ethiopia and they took our suggestions about what we thought could be improved. The Education team then asked us to provide a range of sources that could be used for future groups. That means that most of what we developed and built on this week won’t be used for us. We are a year in and only have 1 more teaching school year. We won’t benefit directly from what we gave this week. But, we left knowing that we are an invaluable asset to Peace Corps Ethiopia and the Education team, because we gave them our knowledge and experiences to start building the program to an even better place.

Appreciation when given is the most powerful motivator.

            Appreciation is something that isn’t given or shown enough. When you are alone at site, you might hear appreciation from people in your community, but rarely from fellow volunteers. You might from your friends that you talk to all the time, or sporadically from a random volunteer who has a good heart. But overall, your service might go unnoticed, or at least that’s how you feel. We have an incredible Education Program team that works so hard and their work often goes unnoticed. When we are having difficulties we tend to take it out on them, even though they don’t deserve it. Sometimes our appreciation of them as people and workers goes unaccounted for, so it’s nice to come together and give them a round of applause and thank them in person for working so hard for us everyday, even when we don’t show them how much it means to us.

            The last day of MSC we did an appreciation showing activity where half of us sat in chairs in a circle and closed our eyes, the other half stood on the outside. Our Program Director would read a sentence such as “This person makes me laugh” or “This person is always there for me” and the people on the outside would walk around the circle. When you got to a person who that sentence applied to you touched that person on the shoulder. I was sitting down first and was pleasantly surprised and touched to receive so many shoulder touches. I was half expecting that everyone touched everyone and that maybe I wasn’t that special, but when I was the one doing the touching I didn’t in fact touch everyone. I did want to show my appreciation to those that have helped me through, but I didn’t touch their shoulder if I didn’t think it applied to them. It was good that their eyes were closed so that it was completely anonymous.

            This is such a simple activity and one that I didn’t think would mean that much, but I realized that it actually really touched me. I think as volunteers we lose some of that human connection when we don’t have it for so long. American and Ethiopian cultures show appreciation in different ways, and so when you are away from the American appreciation for so long, it begins to take a toll. Every person is doing great work, but unless you are told that and how great of a person you are, then you might begin to lose that drive and motivation you came in with.

            I don’t know who touched me on the shoulder for those words of encouragement, and I don’t know exactly whose lives I have touched for the better, but I do know that I came back to site realizing how appreciated I am. I don’t talk to most of my group, and we don’t hang out altogether even when we are altogether, but I think we have a deep appreciation for everyone else, even if we don’t show it. I might not agree or get along with each and every volunteer. But like the puzzle pieces of struggle, we make up our group and we understand each other more than anyone else. I might not talk to a lot of these people when we get back to the US, but we have a bond that is stronger than most anyone else. And our appreciation for each other and the staff is something that’s always there, if not always shown.