Existential Angst Again

December 21

This morning I thought it’d be fun to pick up one of those books written by a PCV in Africa. Sometimes I love those books and their stories are so interesting and make me proud to be a PCV. But sometimes these books make me kind of upset. The author describes in the first chapter witnessing a birth and how different and special it was to have been invited to participate in that tradition in her community, and I’m sure the book goes on to describe her humorous misunderstandings and impactful projects and deep friendships and the like. And I know that in feeling somewhat jealous I’m violating the Golden Rule of Peace Corps Service – it is what it is. I can’t have any preconceived notions about what my service is going to be, and I can’t try to make it something that it’s not. Tacuati is what it is, and I love it here and wouldn’t trade my experience for anything else. Most of the time.

But today I stopped by the Muni and ended up talking with the Secretary of the Environment, a friend of mine, and she mentioned a project she’s doing to make trash cans and put them around town. It’s a great idea, something we’d talked about in the past and something sorely needed here, and something that she’s already done without me. I’m not saying I need to be a part of every project that comes along, and really, the idea should be that capable people initiate and carry out great things on their own, but I still would have like to have participated. I have time on my hands, especially during the summer, and it would have been fun just to help paint the trash cans or something, even if I hadn’t been involved in the planning of the project. So I asked her to let me know when she’s working on it again, offered my help, and now all I can do is wait for her to invite me – or keep passing by the Muni and bugging her til she does invite me. I hate to feel like I’m pushing my way in on her thing, and I don’t want to start wondering why she didn’t invite me in the first place – it probably didn’t even cross her mind. Or possibly she was just making it up and hasn’t even done anything yet. But the weird thing about being in a larger town with so many educated, capable people is that sometimes I don’t really feel needed here.

One volunteer was criticizing Peace Corps recently for being content with mediocrity. He was visiting a school in his community with an Ed volunteer, the goal being to evaluate whether an Ed volunteer could be placed there in the future, and the sense the Ed volunteer got was that this school was already in pretty good shape, with alphabets on the wall and such, so that maybe it didn’t need a PCV. The guy argued that instead of taking a good school and helping it to become great, all PC wants is to take bad stuff and make it good, but really the two are valuable. This makes sense to me (tho the reality is that Ed PCVs are trained in elementary ed 101, and some of us don’t have the experience to go beyond good. Other of my friends who taught elementary school could perhaps help the teachers at that school, but I wouldn’t really be able to help them get to the next level because I lack the expeience). The problem I see is that my teachers here in Tacuati, some of which are good, are content themselves that way and don’t feel the need to push themselves past the basics (which is why maybe this site is such a good fit for my skills). Maybe the same is true for the town as a whole, a general sense of complacency at least for those who have reached a middle class level, so that projects like trash cans aren’t revolutionary and important, but kind of ho hum. My service would have been very different if I lived in one of the asentamientos, with so many needs and maybe a bit more sense of urgency. But I gotta catch myself – it would have been different, not better. It is what it is.

PS – Now it’s 7pm and even when there are things I should be a part of I’m not invited. Last week at the Muni the Chief of Staff and Secretary were talking about forming a neighborhood commission in my barrio to clean the streets. I jumped in to offer my support, and talked with them about how neighborhood commissions are so important and it’s democracy in action and it’s such a great idea, and if I can help form the commissions or help invite people or help facilitate in any way, please let me know. They had mentioned this Thursday as a possible meeting date, and I said, at the very least, since it’s my barrio be sure to invite me to that meeting! I didn’t think any more of it, and haven’t mentioned it to anyone, thinking that it must have been forgotten (as is everything here) and that after New Years I’d ask again about it if I don’t hear anything else.

Fast forward to late this afternoon and I see my neighbor working hard to clean up her yard and also the pretty median strip on our street with trees and bushes. It took me a few minutes of wondering why she was working so hard when I realized – there must have been a neighborhood meeting about cleaning up the street and she’s doing her part. Not only was I not invited to help plan the meeting, I wasn’t even invited to attend. Sucks.