18 May 2010
Maytime Harvest Moon
Good Morning All! I hope this finds you enjoying some pleasant weather and looking forward to your favorite outdoor activity!
weather here in GaMaja is, in fact, much more pleasant as we are heading toward the winter season. It has been a long, beautiful, cool and rainy fall and despite the villagers’ complaints that it’s too cold, I am loving it!
I read somewhere once that fall and the fall harvests were celebrated as a time of fulfillment and a job well done. That is how this month is feeling. We (SA:18ers) are wrapping up projects, celebrating our successes and our failures in equal measure, and taking stock of what the harvest has brought. I think that most of are finding that for all the seeds we planted, soil we turned, sweat we spent and muscles we gained that the most prolific growth has occurred within ourselves. Sure, our villages and the people within our reach have also gained from our efforts but it is hard to measure. And on my best days I have learned to stop trying to measure the growth in others, because the most considerable thing I have learned is my own insignificance. I am not sure insignificance is the word I am grasping for, I only mean that I have learned to put aside my own ego, expectations and American sense of individuality for the greater good.
The biggest challenge all PCVs face, no matter where they are serving, is our own egos. We come into this experience with hopes and expectations of what we changes we can make, how it will look and how it will feel. But it is soon realized that these expectations are unrealistic, if only because we do not fully understand the needs of our communities. This is easily remedied by find out what it is that the community really needs or wants. But let me tell you, this is a shot to the ego. It is not easy to put aside our overeager American egos that think they know what is best.
For me it has been a constant challenge to put aside the part of me that wants to take over a slow moving project and just do it myself! But in the end, if I had just done it all myself it would have defeated the purpose of PC service. So, I gave it my best shot. I am not saying that I successfully put aside my ego all the time, or even with much grace at all but I did give it a shot. And once put aside, even for a moment, it is oddly freeing to know that others will be just fine without me.
And just for the record, no matter how much I ramble on about what I have learned or how many times you may hear me say “when I was in Peace Corps…” keep in mind that I really don’t know what I am talking about. I can speak for my experience and what I think I have learned from it. But what I have found is that the thing I think I know today, I find out tomorrow that I really don’t know!
And now to what has been going on in the real world! Two weeks ago I spent some time at my friend Kelly’s village to help with a playground construction project and one more women’s health retreat.
Kelly had gotten materials donated to build a playground at the crèche (preschool) in her village, which serves about 60 kids. Like most crèche in SA, there was just several tiny tin structures that served mostly as storage space and a large open dirt patch for kids to play on. So over two days, with a lot of help from villagers and several other PCVs, we put together a shade structure, a tree house with swings and a tire obstacle course. All with only a power drill, a hand saw and very little constructional knowledge. But it worked great and the kids are loving it!
We also ran a third women’s health retreat for secondary school learners in Kelly’s village. We had about 30 gals for several hours on a Saturday morning and we covered a lot of material. The thing that was striking to me about this retreat was the questions the women asked. We always put out a question box so that women can ask questions anonymously and there were some very tough questions this time. Many of the questions were about rape and sexual abuse, unplanned pregnancy and HIV. We always strive to give direct, useful information that these women might not be getting anywhere else, so I can only hope that we got some good information out to the women who really needed it.
This week I am heading to one more meeting at the PC office in Pretoria, then out to spend sometime with other PCVs from my group. Our Close of Service (or COS) Conference is next week. It is hard to believe that we have already reached the end of our service! It seems like we are just getting the hang of this thing!
Only 25 more days until World Cup 2010! I hope you are setting your alarms to watch some games!
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