Here are my: (fairly) Unfiltered Thoughts on Volunteering, Privilege, and the Impact of (Elected) Foreignness in the course of Peace Corps Service Year One.

I made it! One Year In Guatemala.

What could be lovelier?

But truly: this land is like a pop-up book of mountains and the normal, everyday views are stunning, at least the region where I live in the Western Highlands. I know there are areas that have a totally different terrain but I haven’t explored them yet.

As I am wont to do, a full 12 months in another country is cause for reflection.

I’ll try to offer some ’tid-bits’ of learning before I get into the nitty gritty: I’ve learned a lot about the importance of momentum. I guess I’m learning the nature of the scientific principles of momentum and inertia in real time on a Guatemalan backdrop. When you’re hoisting yourself up by your bootstraps, keeping a rhythm is really important. Emotional care, the consistency of routine and preparation have been crucial for getting myself out the door. And I should say: I’ve learned a lot about my weaknesses. Maybe my pitfalls were things I knew before but this experience is like being exposed by a floodlight, the resulting shadow is cast on a wall and I can see every inch of my character.

On September 28, 2016, our Country Desk Officer Constance bid us adieu on the 4am charter bus for the Houston airport. “Now I’m going to leave you all with something I was told before I started my service. Fall in love with your host country so that you can overlook the things that are hard.” And then the driver got lost on the way to the airport.

…Now, I’m no Watson but I can read through the lines even at 4am. The quote might not be verbatim but that was the sentiment. What I heard was “Good luck, suckers!”

I think she should consider changing her send-off dictum, even though she’s not wrong at all. Peace Corps is a lot like falling in love and discovering the things that are less than lovely simultaneously. And that’s not because Guatemala has warts that are unique. It’s because going to a foreign country for two years and trying to ‘serve’ it is a mixed notion. Is that an actual term, mixed notion? It just came to me. I like it.

I’m not hear to paint a picture of Peace Corps as a path paved with gold and automatic sensor lights. (Actually, the path isn’t paved at all- ask my sprained ankle). It’s probably why I shouldn’t work for Peace Corps’ PR department, or why I won’t submit my website for their frequent contests, albeit blogging is a popular pastime of PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers). I think that’s because there is so much material for reflection, there are days that we need distractions and that this experience is truly memorable. Even people who aren’t stereotypically ‘bloggy’ types are tempted by the idea, only some follow through.

And only some who pledge two years of service follow through. So many people with whom I found friendship have left for a host of reasons. A small voice in my head wonders if I, if we remainers, are the crazy ones.

For me, service has meant waking up. And I really really really like sleep.

If I wake up at a reasonable hour (8 or 9, I admit, that’s very late to some especially Guatemalans) I’m winning. That means I’ll go to work, be productive or at least, try to be. And that potential to be productive has less to do with my work ethic and more to do with the work model: mobilize the community, train the service providers and challenge ways of thinking. There are some days when this amounts to sitting and watching soccer (gosh it would be so convenient if I liked sports). I’m showing up, taking pictures, cheering. And if class is cancelled in light of sports then that is what I will do. That is to say that change doesn’t happen over night and my presence is all I can offer on some days, forget my agenda.

But even on those days when I’m watching sports instead of checking boxes, I’m winning because I’m staying and I’m showing up. This is what I tell myself the second hour of soccer-watching. And the third, fourth and fifth. But, I have to ask myself, am I? And sure the thought of leaving tempts me: not in the ticket-in-hand, cried about it and told all my friends sort of way. Some days I just fantasize about leaving after I finish year one and reclaiming one year of promised time and cashing it in somewhere else.

‘Making a difference’ is such a rush, right? The end of a day of well-intentioned-good done well, sweat on your brow and self-ambition muted for a few hours: that’s what “service” looks like in my country and used to look like to me. And then after you’ve propped up your feet it feels good that you did good. And it’s all good.

But this commitment isn’t like that, and maybe every 2 weeks a feeling of ‘good’ like that surges and quickly flickers out. If that feeling were what brought me here, or what had to keep me here, I never would have come and I certainly wouldn’t have stayed. So it makes a lot of days, feel, well, unfulfilling and if I’m being super blunt: a waste.

You see, the work model of sending “human resources” to train, mobilize, challenge, mentor and support works really well between organizations that have the same concept of resources. They understand each other and they can look at their needs through a similar lens. But what I see on a daily basis are smiles soaked in decay, stunted adult bodies from chronic malnutrition, (some) uneducated teachers and illiterate generations.

So arriving from an economic powerhouse of a country and explaining that I’m not here to give financial aid stings. And let me clarify, Peace Corps offers financial resources to communities: grants for which we can apply and of course all of the costs they apply to training and sustaining our service for 2 years. But it’s not what Peace Corps is designed to do: it’s about teaching a man how to fish. And that metaphor is a beautiful one when the man wants to fish, sees the need for learning how to fish and shows up when you ask him to.

I’m not here to question or criticize Peace Corps’ model, in fact, it’s changed my life and gifted me this stunning opportunity. But I’m writing about my experience of living 730 days in another country and what that feels like some days. I’m gonna be honest, not pretty, in my reflection.

It’s important for me to explain this because the plight of a Peace Corps volunteer is often misunderstood on both sides. There are the folks back home who say: “We’re proud of you,” you know, uncles and Instagram constituents who simply see pictures of you with different-colored people and assume you’re changing the world. The people on the other side, the people I’m meant to ‘serve’ also misunderstand me: they think I have money, that I’m here to teach English and that I am, and will always be, more fortunate than they are. I am a citizen of the United States. In the third aspect they do not misunderstand me at all, I am more fortunate.

I’m also not here to speak ill of my country, but I could not have anticipated how coveted it is to be Estadounidense from the perspective of Guatemalans. I can’t, and don’t, speak for all Guatemalans of course. I reflect on my sitio, my pueblo Santa Clara La Laguna, and even then I don’t speak for Santa Clareños. In training they shared with us the Ted Talk of “The Danger of a Single Story.” It reveals so much truth about the way we think about foreigners. We, as citizens of the world, paint one picture of what each country or continent holds: “Africa: black, Aids” for example, and we do this with an entire continent of 1.216 billion people. The integrity in our thinking is skewed by distance, media and laziness not to dig below stereotypes that don’t serve us.

In training they compared service to being in a fish bowl. At the time the only thing that felt like a fish bowl was that damn (sorry) office, showing up every day and leaning over a white plastic table for 8 hours inundated with photocopies. All I wanted was for that schedule to end and to have my own independence back. Now, a year after I learned about the fishbowl metaphor, there’s not a day where I don’t get treated as ‘other,’ looked at with unfiltered, unending stares through the eyes of niños and asked “De dónde viene?”. The everyday annoyances of getting asked how much my iPhone costs, “And what is that in quetzales?” to the cost of the flight from the US, “and what is that in quetzales?” to always being told how nice it is in my country by people who’ve never been there, well I get the fishbowl metaphor more than ever. I’m glad they emphasized it.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about privilege because the cornerstone of my reality in this exact moment is the confluence of the streams of my identity: my privilege as a US American, a white person and the socio-economic status of my parents (and when push comes to shove, me). That exhaustion of ‘otherness’ has called so many mind-bending realities to my attention. I remind myself: I’ve chosen this, this fish bowl situation, and there are so many people who are marginalized and treated as ‘other’ who don’t choose it and who can’t change it. Just google ‘colorism’ and try to deny it’s reality. Those people to whom the majority says “too bad for them.” I’m talking about minorities in my own country, immigrants, religions, sexual preference, people with disabilities and anyone who is ‘other’ who has to withstand their otherness every single day. I chose this otherness. It’s a button I can switch off whenever I want to.

And in the midst of said otherness, I feed on podcasts produced by minority voices, not setting out with that intention but just happening that way. Listening, in the calm of my 2-room apartment on Calle Principal, to voices who are distinctly not white talk about their perceptions of white people in the context of being in a fishbowl of foreignness (albeit elected fishbowl) snapped sight into my mind. For this shift in perspective I’m not rarefied and I don’t want to be proud, I just have to recognize, and re-recognize for all the times I forget, that I don’t know what it’s like to be marginalized in my own country or on a global scale for my race (I’ll leave gender out for now).

I’m white, my parents have money and I can get a well-paying job relatively easy (even if it’s not what I want). I look at it differently now, how favorable it is to live in the US. The potential energy of holding a US passport already gives me more economic opportunity, even if I don’t want to take advantage of it. Before I had not considered that fathers left their wives and children to work in other countries so that they could make enough to send money home. Sure, I knew that before, but those were strangers’ stories featured on NPR, they weren’t my neighbors before, I didn’t know their children’s names before, they didn’t invite me over for tamales at midnight on New Years’ Eve before.

And occupying the space of ‘the coveted other’ has stretched the limbs of my brain like a spider. I imagine all the things that I haven’t considered about poverty, developing countries, health and why things are how they are, period. Let me explain: I don’t think of Africa as a rural dessert with ostriches darting across it, a safari. There are cities with skyscrapers and of course I never thought about it before. I binge-watch the third season of Veronica Mars and notice the one recurring black character and one recurring hispanic character and how their race is ever the topic of conversation. Friends? White. Gilmore Girls? They tried to add non-white ethnicities in the reunion mini-series. Why didn’t this infuriate me before, or AT LEAST come to my attention??

And apparently this is called a soapbox instead of just the truth. I’m not going to feel bad about saying it and repeating it. It’s just the truth and why did it take me 31 years to get here?

Not to mention that I, as a US American, have a debt to pay to Guatemala. The US had a conflict with Guatemala in the 60s that further marginalized the indigenous communities of Guatemala. These are the people who took care of me when I sprained my ankle, actually my host mom cried, and who pray for me in the morning and night. My country contributed to the civil war that lasted here from 1960-1996. Can you imagine? It lasted longer than my lifetime and I’m not feeling very young these days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_Civil_War

So I can’t really begin to summate the difference this experience has made in my mental hierarchy. I just really wish that my presence could impact my community the way that my community has impacted me. That’s what feels so strange: some days I feel like a fraud and like a lazy bum. I sleep in and my host family has been up for hours, even my 90 year-old abuelita, talk about a guilt trip. And I wonder how I’m helping when I sit around with more expendable money than my host family has, and this on a volunteer’s salary. The fact is this money isn’t worth noodles in the States, but that’s hard and not appropriate to explain to people here when they notice my 100 quetzales. (We get paid by money being deposited into our accounts which we pull from the ATM). I walk around site trying to break big bills, it’s a constant reality check. Especially when you’re trying to bargain!

I notice how much education and culture has affected my thinking. My host family burns styrofoam and plastic in the fire which is undoubtedly a no-no in the US. But try explaining: O-zone layer? When I don’t totally understand it myself. It’s not that I’m right and they’re wrong, it’s just that we have different ways of doing things and it manifests itself all the time. I burn my used toilet paper for crying out loud, the sewage pipes are too skinny for toilet paper.

When I went back to the States, I noticed how much I appreciated entertainment: bright lights and immaculate choreography and sweeping orchestral numbers. Here entertainment is just as important but it’s so, so different. And child-rearing is like this big decision in the States, and in the campo it’s like just another day, tie that baby to your back and keep moving (and I do mean 2 year-olds). Refrigeration: who do you know in the States who doesn’t own a fridge? Even people who tell you they’re broke, they can’t afford to go out to an expensive restaurant with you but I bet you they have a fridge, a microwave and a hot shower and probably a bathtub and tons of clothes. Eating cheese, in my life, has now become an event. Air circulation, central heating, vacuums, carpet, walls that aren’t moldy, these are all comfortable . And I live in a cush house with a water repository so that I don’t run out of water and a heater so I don’t have to take bucket showers, whereas many volunteers don’t. And still I miss carpet and non-dusty homes from all the dirt that sweeps in without invitation.

So, to reflect on a few other findings:

When I’m calling the shots, I’m really not punctual, really don’t like to wake up early and don’t always follow-through. It’s apparent to everyone around me, including me. And I don’t mop my floors everyday like my host family.

Sickness and health are often illusions, things society has informed us on. I didn’t realize this until I learned that walking in the rain is considered ‘risky’ because I’LL GET SICK, not wearing a sweater when it’s 72 degrees or eating anything at night that’s not warm, as in an avocado, will make me sick.

Here, eating is always a good thing. It means no one is hungry. When I say: “I just ate so much!” my host family always says: “Gracias a Dios!” In the States if say you ate a lot it’s usually a complaint, a step on the path to aesthetic failure. I prefer my host family’s approach: “Gracias a Dios, you ate. There was food. Now you are full and satisfied.”

Cell phones are a fairly new cultural norm, so signing documents with an official stamp, bringing in a ‘solicitud’ and having signed copies of everything is still an operational cornerstone. If you don’t show up to follow-up, you can guarantee your application has not been reviewed.

Wedding rings are a first world thing. They’re expensive, non-sensical for heavy manual labor and might give away that you’re hitched when you don’t want to be found out.

You might discover dead dogs or, heaven forbid, dead humans in your normal day-to-day. Alcoholism is a tragic issue in my pueblo and when people drink, they drink in heavy excess. In the campo at least, they’re doesn’t exist a culture of ‘moderate’ drinking.

Catholic vs. Evangelical. There’s no such thing as non-religious, to my understanding. The fact that my dad is a pastor only further confuses their perceptions of me.

And lastly, collectivist collectivist collectivist. Everything here is done in community whereas my country is hugely individualistic. I didn’t know just how individualistic my thinking was until I moved under a roof where three generations of women share one bedroom. You get married and you still live with your family. My host sister tells me it makes her sad that I won’t live with my parents (long-term) when I return to the States. That’s just how things are done here.

I’d be more beautiful if my hair were still long, I am often told when people look at my photos. “Why did I cut it?” I am often asked. I get tired of the question as what I hear is: You looked better then. Even my 65 year-old host mom and 90 year-old grandmother have hair down to their waists.

Living seasonally is in part a pastime of poverty. It’s trendy in the US because our food is shipped to us from all over, but when you live in the campo, you eat what God sends you. You accept the rain because God sent it, and you thank God for the food that God gave you. And that is how it goes.

And for now, until new thoughts dawn on me, I’ll leave it.

Thanks for supporting me in this journey. Your thoughts and sentiments are always appreciated.