Two Years? Really?

One week at post! That should feel like an accomplishment, and in some ways it does, but I also feel incredibly overwhelmed most of the time. This manifests itself in bizarre, wonderful ups (teachings some lady friends of Magloire’s how to make banana bread; telling jokes and people actually laughing) and some horrible, I-want-to-do-nothing-but-cry downs (what the hell am I supposed to do now?; this house sucks and I’m poor and cannot even afford to buy a chair).

I think on a scale of one to ten, one being the least happy, and ten the most, I average roughly a three or four at the moment. Ralph and I texted back and forth today, and he put it well when he said “I go from confidence to terror in a typical day.” I wrote back, “roughly the same for me, except I go from terror to more terror.” The main contributors to my unhappiness are (1) my housing conditions (2) work conditions and (3) already bummed about those things, it’s easy to start missing family and friends from the states and even other PCVs here who I’ve made friends with.

I’ll start with my house – I should describe it a bit anyhow. It’s four modest-sized rooms and a large living room, with a small front porch. One of the four rooms will be my kitchen and one is my bedroom. As for the other two, I don’t, at the moment, have the money or werewithal to begin to know what to do with them. The roof is corrugated tin, supported by wooden beams, which are on top of cement-covered mud-brick walls. From inside the house, in three of the rooms, you can see the corrugated tin roof; there is only plafond (or wooden ceiling) in my bedroom and the salon. This does not make me happy. For one, I think it is a security risk, and for two, it makes it too easy for bugs to get in.

Aside from that, though, my house kinda sucks because it’s very lacking in furniture and the PC settlement allowance was nowhere near enough for me to set up my house. I am living modestly indeed – at the moment, don’t even have a table and chairs and my settlement money is all spent (though I do have two stools)! My “kitchen” is thus rendered virtually useless though without bidons to collect enough water to do dishes, I suppose this is a moot point. I guess I never considered how nice it was to move into dorm rooms that already had basic furnishings: a stove, a sink, a countertop. My house was E-M-P-T-Y when I moved in. Just walls and floor and some ceiling. I guess I should be happy with what I got. I’m trying to be, but really, it sucks.

This is my room during the first week. Pretty much all of my belongings are in this one room since I have nowhere to really put anything

The one thing I am optimistic about is my front porch. My front lawn is really nicely shaded by five big trees and my porch will be perfect for lounging in comfy chairs or even a hammock. I dream of when I can afford these things and then sit out on my porch with a cup of tea on the misty, foggy, cool mornings here in comfort and face the day a happier person. Here is a photo of the back of my house. You can see three of the huge trees towering above the house, which are in the front yard and provide that wonderful shade.

My latrine and washing area are in back of the house, up a small hill, from which I have a lovely view of the village, since I lived kind of outside the main area. It is weirdly nice to have such a lovely view of village while squatting down and shitting.

The view from the latrine

I am getting used to the latrine and bucket bath, though the scarcity of water makes it harder to stay clean. That is, there are plenty of water sources in village, but I don’t have water containers yet to gather and store a lot of water at my house. I have two neighbors: the people who live next door to me and one of the mayor’s two wives across the street. My other neighbors are vast cornfields and two papaya trees next to my house, which is pretty sweet – free fruit! My next-door neighbors have goats and chickens that roam freely all over both our front and back yards, shitting everywhere and generally being a nuisance, and a pig and a turkey penned up in back.

Don’t let the ropes fool you, these goats in my backyard are not tied to anything.

The noises of my life are birds chirping in the early morning, wasps buzzing in and out of my window during the day (I think my house used to be their home) and grasshoppers singing in the evening, punctuated by the grunt of the pig or the occasional gobble-gobble of the turkey. One day, recently, I was laying down in my room reading. I had left the side door to my house open and a goat wandered in. When I noticed him sniffing around my bedroom door, I shrieked in surprise. He stopped cold, looked at me (I think noticing me for the first time), and took off out of my house. It’s these kinds of occurrences that make me feel like old MacDonald on the goddamn farm. That and the incessant cock-a-doodle-doo from the neighbor’s roosters (do they ever sleep?)

So having spent the better part of the first week trying to take care of some matters concerning the house, I’m starting to think about beginning work, or rather, what Americans would consider “work.” Really, just being here, meeting people, and trying to learn, observe village life is my job too, and I have been doing that. When I talk about beginning my work, I mean doing needs assessment with the various community groups. Magloire and I talked today about working with the health club at the local high school. Before we can start working with them, though, we need to meet with the responsible of the health club (ie the teacher in charge of the health club). By chance, we ran into him today and I was disappointed to discover that school vacation begins this coming Friday and we won’t be able to begin working with them until the beginning of January. Magloire says we can work with other groups in the meantime, which is fine, I guess, though I am confused about where to find these groups.

I guess what is unsettling is knowing even where to begin. Of course, I understood coming into Peace Corps that this would be part of my job: finding work, finding my way. I even asked for it. But really, it is a bit terrifying. I’m used to having an agenda everyday. Even during stage, there was ostensibly an agenda. Here, really, the first and most persistent question in my mind each day is: “what the hell am I supposed to do?” Magloire has been very helpful. Without him, I would probably spend the better part of each day crying. When we walk through town, he’s introducing me to people, trying to help me get to know people, the village. Sometimes, though, (okay most times) I feel like he is babysitting me – like I am a useless lump without any capabilities to do shit on my own. But then, without his constant aid, I kind of am a useless lump.

Oy. I wish this would get easier fast. I am already sick of this “character-building” bullshit. Before coming here, whenever I thought of Peace Corps in the abstract, I kind of knew there would be trying times, but I really had no idea how they would be difficult. Now here they are, staring me in the face, and the only thing comforting me is that I know it could be worse. That is, this sucks. I sincerely wish this didn’t suck, but I feel powerless to make it not suck. Well not powerless, so much as I know it’s going to take a lot of time before it’s better. Meanwhile, all I can do is sit and wait (figuratively and actually) until things improve. This is how I am sure that this is not the worst it could be, though: because I can envision and see that time will make it better. I think I will know the worst if/when I encounter it, because then I will not be able to see even a glimmer of hope for things to get better. I think that will be when my will is really tested. Probably, right now, this is just normal, beginning-of-service jitters.

I hope.