The Peace Corps Personality Bootcamp

Preface: Friends, family, fellow-volunteers, facebook stalkers, fretting PC applicants and future volunteers.  This blog is all about my intense emotional process here and so I want to preface by saying I am fantastic, Inhambane is fantastic, the weather is fantastic and I am very happy to be here and that I made this choice.  Mozambicans are generally a wonderfully welcoming people and the work the PC does here is inspiring.  That said, adjustment to a whole new life in Africa is tough and below is reflective of the more difficult and personal aspects of this process.  If you’ll indulge me this overshare, I’ll be more focused on the place and work in the next one.

So the 2^nd of this month was my four month anniversary in Mozambique, which means I'm now almost half a year into my service.  I have to admit, during staging and training it is easy to listen in an abstract way to everything that they tell you about what your emotional process will be like during your service.  And it’s easy to think, “yeah, but they don’t know me!  I’m just super happy to be here and I will handle it all with grace and always be positive because I am so grateful and in awe!”  Truth is our fellow volunteers gave us a “map” of the emotional stages that we would go through at every part of the process, and so far, I would just say that they do know me, and probably every single one of us.  Our past experiences, our sites, houses, jobs, communities, friends, organizations, environments are all very, very different, but our reactions to them are pretty much the same.

For me, the honeymoon period is over, and now I get to wrestle with the hard reality of being here for another 23 months, and I will say it isn’t pretty or easy, and it challenges everything that I thought about myself and who I would be here when I was immersed in the fantasy of being here from the safety of the states. I miss things I didn’t even realize I would miss so badly. Food (I’ll spare you the specific list, it’s longer than this blog entry), anonymity, my family, my friends, the rain in Olympia, a lazy day snuggled up with someone watching movies, speaking my own language, driving, camping, cold weather, sweet potato fries, a night out drinking and dancing with friends, showing my knees without shame, a gym, can’t believe it’s not butter spray, real coffee, toasters, tap water that is safe to drink, phone calls, washers and dryers, hot showers (yes, fellow volunteers, I do have a shower with a converter so I’m lucky, but it’s rarely more than barely warm), everything accomplished by the feminist movement, fitted sheet sets in attractive patterns, well cared for animals, being in the same time zone as my loved ones, noise ordinances, watching grey’s anatomy and eating ice cream with my parents, a bank account with money in it, hair salons, used clothing stores organized by size, whole wheat bread, mustard, meat (oops, getting onto food here), my keyboard and guitar, roller skating, Netflix and Hulu, fast internet, hugs, customer service, clean and free public bathrooms stocked with toilet paper, mothers who tell their children not to stare, pea coats with scarves, a giant selection of tea at the grocery store, the smell of fall, bike rides, an oven, microwaves, used book stores, soy milk, and a refrigerator.

I am facing the death throes of my past life as everything I went through to get here has taken a running leap at my brain and heart with fangs bared.  It’s as if to fully be born into this new life I have to see my old one flash before my eyes. All my past relationships and friendships have resurfaced in some way, and I have had to face any pain or guilt or disappointment and try to find a sense of peace.  The fact that I am turning thirty in a couple of months and am doing something that people in their early or mid-twenties generally do leaves me feeling old and behind after a life of feeling young and ahead.  It has also become intensely real that I am not likely to have a romantic relationship, casual or otherwise, for over two years and that puts me single and facing the dating world again at 32.  My identity as a professional is challenged because I cannot speak well, and as a result, my colleagues and community members talk to me and treat me like a child.  All of my ego and pride about being accomplished and well-paid and doing important work means nothing here, no one knows me and I have to start from scratch to earn even a sliver of respect.  I have always been the top of my class, always the number one or number two student, but in training, I was in the lowest language group and now I have watched my younger colleagues as they rocket ahead of me with their Portuguese skills, challenging my identity as an awesome scholar. I have always felt optimistic and inspired about community projects and here I see all my colleagues jumping in with boundless ideas and enthusiasm, and I’m finding that I’m more hesitant and tentative (though, admittedly, it’s better to sit back for a while and get your bearings, even according to the PC). I have only received serious professional or academic criticism once or twice in my life, and the most severe and personal tongue lashing I’ve ever gotten, I got in training from someone who didn’t know me at all.  In addition to eating my way out of the U.S. (my own personal three month good-bye party courtesy of my friends Butter Chicken, Korean Barbeque, Cheese, Pizza, Ice Cream, Sushi and Pulled Pork Sandwich), food has also been my go-to coping mechanism for all the stress of the past four months and so I’ve gained something like 15-20 pounds in the last 7 months, and I’ve lost all the strength and endurance I gained in derby and in physical training, so my identity as a fit and toned athlete (and a sexy one to boot!) has gone out the window with the rest.  My identity as fashionable and hip also no longer exists because in addition to an extremely limited wardrobe, ¾ of which is either falling apart or no longer fits me (either too saggy from hand-washing and line drying or too tight from the all-carb Mozambican diet) and a lack of hair dryers, products or curling irons, Mozambicans dress extremely well and when you don’t they notice, either by telling you, or by blatantly and relentlessly glaring at whichever thing they seem to find personally insulting and offensive, generally my shoes or my hair. Because I am usually the only white person, it is incredibly unnerving how people just openly stare with this shocked look on their face as if you are an animal in the zoo, scabby and with all your hair falling out taking a bath in your own feces. Added to that, for the first time in my life I have neither a plan nor a clue as to what I want to do after this giant step.  I’ve always had a five year plan and a very clear idea about how what I am doing fits into what I am doing next and what I am passionate about and what I believe and now I have lost all that focus. I have a good idea of who I’ve been, what I’ve been passionate about, what I believed, but it’s like I am floating in a stormy sea and all of those things are life preservers floating around me and I have to choose which one to swim to before I drown but I’m paralyzed by the thought of choosing the wrong one.  Peace Corps was my last ditch effort to figure it out and so I showed up just hoping that this experience will bring me some clarity and focus and direction.  What I’ve learned so far is that once the novelty of being a heroic and jaunty adventuring social activist living in a foreign country wears off, you are left with the same you that you started with. So now, here I am just sitting in the unknown, or as Pema Chodron says (and my mom recently reminded me) “Standing on groundless ground.” 

All of this is just the most extreme manifestation of every single one of those little fears and doubts we all carry around, they have just gotten magnified in the microscope of this incredibly unfamiliar environment.  Don’t get me wrong though, I am glad to be facing them, it’s just quite a bit more intense than I expected.  It is wave after giant wave and once I think I’ve ridden one out, here comes another one rolling in.  But I’ve been calling them death throes, because they come with a feeling of urgency, like all those self-illusions and delusions and aspects of my personality have realized that this is their last chance to hook me and pull me under and I can see that it’s hilarious and sort of sad how desperate they are.  It is a time that is ripe with potential change, and I can actually see it happening and I can see all the falsity and ego-clinging for what it is and I can see for a moment at the crest of each wave that there is sunlight and peace on the other side of the squall.

They tell you that you will feel isolated, and I do when I walk around my community because I am so obviously out of place.  There is nothing like being catcalled and taunted by groups of 13 year old boys to make you feel like its junior high all over again. But unlike some of my colleagues, I have immensely enjoyed my time alone in my house.  I’m not frightened of the boogey man or rats or spiders or giant grasshoppers or ninjas (word here for thieves), or of the dark. I like washing my clothes and cleaning my house and cooking my food. I sleep like a baby, aside from the rooster who always wakes up at midnight to announce that dawn is five hours away. I haven’t been truly alone in my own space or with myself for any period of time in almost thirty years, and getting to know myself with no one else watching to impress or accommodate has been like getting to know someone that you’ve seen every day for decades and never said even “hello” to and then one day you take the time.  Turns out, they have all sorts of interesting stories, and they are quirky and a little weird, and they like art and music and writing and cooking and you have all sorts of things in common and they might just turn out to be your new best friend and you can’t believe you went this long without getting to know them. 

I am loaded with Pema teachings and PC books and resources to help me cope with all of this new stuff and so I’ve been working my way through them. Thanks to Pema and a meditation practice, I have seen how little (if ever) I am actually just present and how much of my time (if not all) I spend in my mind flying around in the past and the future and in fantasy and fear and guilt and judgment and self-abasement and anger and regret. I’ve learned that we are all the same in this regard; it is simply the nature of our minds.  I think that if we could externalize that voice and just listen to it babble on, it would be hilarious to hear the narration out loud as we jump around the neural pathways we’ve built and then reinforced in our minds that connect one thing to another to another to another to another.  But we can’t, and the voice carries so much authority that somehow a passing and vague desire for ice cream sweeps you away into this 10 minute rollercoaster ride that takes you on a tour of the theme park that is your life and lands you smack in the middle of your biggest pain. Then you come to shaking your head and sweating and with your heart racing as if you’ve been woken from a bad dream.  I’ve found that I love with a passion the stillness and calm that comes in the few seconds that you actually sit in the now and be.  It feels like coming home exhausted from a long, stressful whirlwind of trip and curling up into your clean warm comfy bed and laying your head on a cool pillow and thinking you have never ever in your life been this comfortable or content or relaxed or been so happy to be home. I want to make those fleeting moments longer.  So I’m practicing with meditation to not always run away with the narrator in my head (who I’m pretty sure has ADD and is simultaneously sado-masochistic) who would prefer me always waiting in line for the next crazy roller coaster ride.  

Thanks to the PC books,  I have an idea now of who my heroes and role models are and why (my mom, my step-father, Ani Difranco, Melissa, Ann Lamott, Pema Chodron); I know what kind of life I want to have and where I am undecided (Kids or no kids?  Married or unmarried? City or country or other country? Job or another Master’s degree? Pacific Northwest or warm sunny climate?); I have done quite a bit of short term and long term goal setting and identifying the things that could keep me from reaching those goals; I have recognized some patterns in thought and behavior that I’ve carried with me mindlessly repeating for a long time;  I have realized that while I’m still not fully grounded in who I actually am, I understand that is not the pretty image of who I wish I would see when I look in the mirror or who I want to tell myself or others that I am, but that it doesn’t have to be disappointing because I am pretty lovable, interesting and cool nonetheless.  So long story short. Need personality boot camp?  Join the Peace Corps.

The great news is that I have a plan and I’ve been doing it! I get up at 6 every day. I am six weeks into my running program, I’ve been meditating every day, eating healthy, doing yoga, writing almost every day, keeping a clean house without an empregada, taking long walks on the bay, getting Portuguese tutoring, making art (by the way, I can sketch pretty well, who knew?), cooking complex and delicious meals (vegetarian….did I mention I miss meat?) for dinner-parties where I am the only guest in attendance and presenting it on a single plate as beautifully as any OCD alpha-cook can, and I’ve been saying “yes!”  I’ve laid out my goals for this first year on a giant poster.  And I have made a list of all the places I could decide to go and all the things I could decide to do after the Peace Corps, all the paths that my life could take, and it has made me realize that there are lots of exciting options and it is really up to me. Somehow, finding peace with life after this experience is allowing me to feel engaged and inspired here with this work even though what I will be doing is as of yet vague and unformed.  So it is really my life, and it’s happening right now and all I need to do is to be patient, stay engaged, keep working and follow my soul.