at the close of 2 years serving in guatemala my life was my imbroglio. there was no doubt as to whether or not i would be returning to the states. there was nothing to stay for besides latching onto something that clearly had run its course. my replacement had already come to my site while the majority of fellow volunteers who i began service with had already returned home basking in the glow of new found freedoms, and wallowing in a sense of profound loss.
what a sensation.
i returned home and after 2 mere weeks had landed a peachy job working at a big box bookstore for the holiday season... i was stationed as checkout girl number 3 and somehow managed to convince myself that this was necessary. that this was an investment in my future. that i am 27 years old, goddammit, and it was time to grow up, and flee the nest. that illusive beast, financial freedom, loomed somewhere on the horizon and i took aim with a squirt gun shlepping bargain books at $7.50 an hour.
aside from this, it was strange getting used to mirrors again. i have a full length mirror mounted on the back of my closet door, and sometimes when i would go to get my shoes out in the morning, i would catch a glimpse of this woman. decidedly older, more angular, an expression of nervous anxiety spreading like an allergic reaction across her face. impending inertia. it felt as though i must be moving, because that is what everything else around me was doing.
moving.... or at least contemplating moving. the next move.
it was decided that this is what i would do in the morning.
sometimes i would stand there for 10 minutes and just stare. not for vanity’s sake, but just simply because, well, i hadn’t seen this person for a while. this curly headed, freckled speckled bit of a mess, and i didn’t know quite what to make of her. a small, but significant part of Peace Corps for me was about surrendering vanity. no make-up, no shaving, clothes meant for little more than modesty sake. it was liberating and also pure escape from a culture that left me feeling tired and numb. now i was forced to face the mirrors again, and in a sense face the me i had been avoiding for the last couple of years.
i came back to the room i grew up in, and nothing had been moved. aside from a flimsy layer of dust, the same books overflowed the same shelves making jenga like configurations along the floor. my tiny twin bed, the same one my mother had slept in as a girl, with the same mass produced quilt with the dizzying Irish chain pattern that always felt cool to the touch. my collection of beautiful handmade clay vases my off-again, soon to be on-again boyfriend had gifted me one by one filled with remaining flowers his mother thoughtfully arranged for friends and neighbors at summer weddings.
all elements of my life, this girl’s life.
it was all me, but it had a youthful exuberance that somehow seemed a bit too optimistic for the place i had come from.
even though this would seem apparent to most, i had this self-centered fixation where i couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that my community was still there even though i myself wasn’t. that women were still waking up at an ungodly hour to bring corn to the molino, that the seasons were still changing with the rains, and that the public masturbator was still..... well, you know. i occasionally shot a message to my replacement, charlie, who had been dubbed “Don Carlos” by community members, a title that he accepted willingly with a shy smile and a nervous laugh. my question of “how are the ladies doing?” was always appeased with a confident “good!” leaving me curious to what “good!” looked like in that place.
good.
a term that had come to almost be self-negating after a couple of years. everything was always, “esta bien”. what came after was where the truth seemed to emerge. i’m good, but the corn has some kind of blight, i’m pregnant again, and we’re leaving next week to work on the finca harvesting coffee. Pero, si, todo esta bien. in truth, though, they weren’t somehow pretending that certain circumstances didn’t exist. it’s just that it was all relative and in that unforgiving climate where it can as easily drizzle as it can pour, life unfolds and there is no fighting the slow progression of time. no one is trying to squeeze in one last appointment or errand. the day marches on to the sound of a steady fall of rain on a tin roof and so do they.
i spent half a year coming to terms with the fact that even though my mind was stuck on a mountaintop in Guatemala, my life was proceeding despite my greatest efforts to freeze time so that my emotions could somehow play catch-up with my physical actuality. eventually something did catch up to me and i found myself embracing a rediscovered appreciation for microbrews and thigh grazing skirts. something familiar that tasted like freedom, modernity, and even a bit lusty. i was flirting with a culture that felt like an ex-boyfriend. he was fast, always cooler than i could ever be, and at times, arrogant and cold. it was like taking a shot of jameson; it gave me that fire belly, but i could feel the lines of right and wrong becoming as blurry as the Texas/Mexican border. everything was intermingling and i was avoiding establishing any real boundaries. oh, but it was so beautiful and dizzying that there was nothing to do, but bathe in it for a while. suddenly i was able to enjoy all those things that had become so attractive simply because they were inaccessible.
i did my best to stay busy working as a substitute spanish teacher, a substance abuse prevention “specialist”, and at a coffee shop. i was so fixated on making ends meet that i somehow forgot to apply to graduate school. i worked and felt bored. that was my modus operandi. i left a place where my daily work felt so intertwined with a greater good and now was left asking the eternal question, “would you like cream and sugar in that?” i knew i needed out and needed out fast. i spent hours scouring the internet and sent application after application for positions that seemed a bit more in line with what i was looking for. i received email after email responses saying, “Thank you for your interest in this position. We received well over 1 billion applications and are regrettably unable to interview all candidates at this time. Best of luck in your future endeavors.” turns out that i was not the only one searching for a job in the midst of a recession. all the while, i had been getting emails from Peace Corps about their Response program.
the greatest challenge upon my return to the states was a loss of a sense of purpose. i was living, but i just felt like a little hamster on a very big, inescapable wheel. i worked to pay the bills, but it didn't feel as though anything i did was contributing to a greater good, not even in theory, much less in practice, not even for myself. it seemed to be the question always on the forefront of my mind or any peace corps volunteer's mind during service: is my presence here really making a difference? after gaining some distance i feel as though i can say i have, albeit small. i have a place i can return to and feel at home, a place where i belong, and in a small way, that belongs to me, too.
i had dismissed the idea of going abroad having returned so recently to country and having a really wonderful boyfriend here in the states, but i was beginning to feel trapped. and the position descriptions for a lady that loves development and adventure were edging on seductive. “Spend 6 months teaching English in a rural community in Indonesia.” “Work to create a training program for teachers on HIV/AIDS in Malawi.” I was intrigued and felt life was calling once again. the application required little more than checking off a few desired locations and i sent it in without much thought. i felt disgustingly under qualified for most positions i applied to and figured it was a crapshoot. that is until life ended up calling back in the form of a Peace Corps recruiter asking if i would be interested in interviewing for a position in Panama. turns out i got the job and now i sit here writing on the patio of a very thick, very Catholic woman named Gladys in a small city in Panama.
for the next four months i will be working to help develop agricultural trainings for outlying communities. my plan is to try and not be a bum, and keep a regular blog this time around. i am very excited about being here in Panama and can’t wait to, like everyone keeps on saying, “hit the ground running”. feel free to leave questions/comments/musings here.
gracias, chjonte, and thanks.
