Week 3 of training, I ate 5 tortillas during one lunch because I loved them so much and came home and broke the key to the house. Out of all the things I’ve managed to break in my life (showerhead, trucks, hard drives, trust) this was the first time I’ve broken a key. I use it as a reminder to expect the unexpected in this country, things will never according to plan. “Prepare to be astonished.”

I keep the key in my bag as a reminder. (Also, it’s pretty impressive).

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So. during. training. I went to some funky places; funky places in my soul where longitudinal lines are meritless.

You see: I came in to this process with very little invested. I joked to my friends: I’m joining Peace Corps for the health insurance. To be honest, it’s half true and a lot real. I wanted people to know I’m not trying to save the world, flicking off the impressions that I’m some kind of hero. I wasn’t naive, I just needed something to do. I was fresh off of a most resplendent summer in Alaska, the happy summer, and stepped into it clear-minded but carefree.

A light tinge of apathy and lots of jokes got me through Staging in Houston and the first two weeks. But by week 3 I plunged: gassy and absolutely over  the powerpoints, post-its, early mornings and “how are you feelings?” And I’m not even accounting for the language barrier or culture shock. I’m just talking about how I felt in the confines of my own culture: training, speaking English (most of the time), all within the walls of the office.

By the end of the roller coaster from which even apathy could not shield me, I learned something: I can be marginally invested and still be surprised by how hard the process can be. I was surprised by how miserable I felt some days, poison coursing through my veins even. I thought because I was less invested coming into this and not much invested in staying in the US, I would feel less. I would coast through. Sure, I’m here, 2 years, it’s just a ripe alternative to being bored in the States, right? I.did.not.coast. I felt things. I thudded, skid, fell, farted and sometimes cried. Even though in some senses I didn’t care, I still had cares. Come to find out, caring is hard to shake.

And I realized something else: I came into this in denial. In retrospect, I would do it the same way again. It’s the only way to extricate yourself from your comforts and do something surreal and oh-so-real.

My mood was low: I was continually bombarded by groupetude*. While I love my friends in Peace Corps, I need TIME APART, A SEPARATE PEACE, Fijase que: INTROVERT. But I am faced with the situation every day of the 9 weeks: I want to see my new friends, who I rely on and with whom I can utilize easy speech and understanding, but I am so far out of balance by this schedule and group work, that I can’t spend all my time with them or my head will explode. But we are about to leave each other for 2 years. I crave their comfort and I want to be alone: ultra training conflict. I thought I would be alone in the hotel room before we left for site (use the word ‘hotel’ loosely here), it led me on like a gold carrot in the distance. I checked into a room with 4 other girls: desperate for solitude.

*GroupetudeTM: Groupetude is a term I just invented to describe the overall feeling or attitude of the trainee group cultivated by a sense of social exhaustion encouraged by diarrhea and topped-off my bumpy micro rides and ripe cases of BO. Groupetude was an undercurrent of emotion that began to tug me under, tempting me to breathe negativity to connect with the general atmosphere. 9 weeks of training, 6 a week, vaccinations, chuchos, and the wide-range of host family experience and long-winded technical sessions, you get it. The sessions creeped along. We just want to be in our sites but we’re afraid to leave each other!

But on the very last day of training, Mayan Language class, I was struck with understanding. As I attempted glotal sounds for the time first EVAH, imitating a sprinkler or hocking a loogie to manage this language, understanding struck me right on the fo-head. Miles deeper than the groupetude problem, host family awkwardness and culture shock, I identified the most resounding cord that pulled me under: I feel enlightened. Since our meeting about supporting US diversity in the Guatemalan context on NIGHT TWO, my self-awareness has been recalled and recalled, pulled from the shelves for further restructuring. As I sat in the diverse circle of American citizens, hearing their frustrations and burdens of being Black in Guatemala, being told they’re not really from the US, or Hispanics being constantly asked how they got a visa, my own privilege and ease was recalled for further restructuring. I am in fact privileged in the States AND outside the States. I am privileged, on a global school, because of the tone of my skin. I can’t ignore this fact.

And I can’t explain it to my old life, my old self, how the thing I’ve always known is more mind-shattering than before. More diversity sessions followed and continued to call to light the silt of my mind for further question. Sift sift sift. For the first time it’s hit me, my privilege is a living, breathing bonified tall tower that calls attention to my existence at every turn: I have more opportunity, more luxury, more health, wealth and more ease because I’m a White US American. Conversely from these sessions, it’s been made clear that being a woman in this world is not as privileged as being a man. Deeper my feet sunk into the sand, the grit of the reality. Sift sift sift: I am more fit to fight for equality for my paisanos and for myself.

Some of my black colleagues here in country go into their own site nervous that their host families could reject them for being black. My Korean colleague will recognize that the excessive glances are not just about her being different from everyone else. It’s more than that. It’s exotic, it’s being regarded as ‘other’ to the nth degree. The most responsible thing I can do is recognize that I cannot relate.

And my old world, my old life, will stay the same. And I won’t. I will change. I’ve already started to change.

And if I make this two year commitment and follow-through, diarrhea and chuchos and beans and every lovely smile and genuine conversation and hard-earned gift through rough hands between now and December 2018, I will be further estranged from my family, my friends and my life as I knew it.

Before swear-in, I called my supervisor. I needed someone to hear me and to understand. The burden of my silt-shift is not the kind of weight I wanted to lower on another volunteer, they are sorting through their own strife. And I know my sister would listen but she doesn’t know the place where I stand. And neither do my parents, my host mom, friends at home, and I don’t pray. So it is Carolyn. She is literally the only person I can talk to. I emailed her during Mayan language class: can I talk to you today? She emails back- yes, I will come find you. She doesn’t. She calls me that night. We talk: Hey Carolyn, I’m NOT thinking of backing out. But I’m realizing that if I go down this path and do Peace Corps for two years, I have no idea what my options will be in two years. Professionally or emotionally: who will understand me when I’ve already been burdened by 9 weeks of experience? I’ll be further up a creek of isolation from my well-meaning, loving family and what if they are all I have? They are what I have. And I have no straightforward career. I have professional ADD. What do I do?

I look around at the other PCVs. They are beautiful and smart and have masters degrees or are at the end of their careers, making good with the blessings they’ve been given. My Project Manager told my colleague that she is pretty so she fears her site won’t take her seriously. Believe me: I noticed when Rocío mentioned nothing of the sort to me. I am not blonde. I am not what the foreigners are really turnt by. I love feeling like the kinda attractive girl next to the really attractive ones. It’s too often that I feel that way.

And then I look around me and remember that I am in a country of malnutrition rates that top the charts. I remember that my struggle with identity is also a privilege. Tuberculosis is more dire than low self-esteem by degrees. Plus I am pretty. I can get over myself and admit that.

So I held up my right palm and I swore in to the Peace Corps. I found a fabulously free dress in the PACA pile and I spent the afternoon in Antigua. On Saturday I caught up on writing in a cafe. It was a gorgeous day. I went home. I went to sleep early because I’m still tired and sleep is gorgeous. And life is gorgeous.

To 730 days of being a volunteer.