This week marks an exciting undertaking which is the PROJECT FRAMEWORK REVISION for Youth in Development. Basically, each Peace Corps project has a ‘logic project framework’ or in Spanish marco de trabajo that defines our project goals and objectives (or: our scope of work). Every five years Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington asks that each project staff revisit their project frameworks and review their effectiveness with the help and insight of Host Country Nationals (Guatemalans).
As volunteers, and as a project, we have been anticipating and preparing for this undertaking all last year (2018).

So far in this week-long process, we have been learning Peace Corps’ approach to establishing a project framework and what the necessary steps are to revising it.

I’ve been sitting in a conference room with my Project Manager (Boss), Project Training Specialist (Other Boss), Training Manager, DPT- I don’t remember what it means but the guy who is over the programs and works directly under the Country Director, along with three volunteers (myself being one). We have been sipping coffee, shifting our weight in our seats, chiming in when the spirit leads us and responding to prompts for the last two full days and three days more await us.

Last night a family from Santa Clara called me, they passed the phone from the Mom to the youngest daughter to the middle child. “You missed my birthday!” she said, and truth be told, I missed a lot of birthdays in 2 years living in a pueblo but I did the best I could. But it still stung a little because Glindy (the birthday girl) is one of my most attentive and intelligent students. Her family invited me over for tamales this year at Christmas. I told her I would get her a gift but she said: “Mejor no porque la fecha ya pasó!” But I swore to her that I would anyway.

In addition, I have been getting several Whatsapp and facebook messages from friends in Santa Clara “Dónde andas Amiga?” “Cómo estás Amiga, ya regresaste a tu país?” they ask me. It’s funny how quickly people notice when I am not walking up and down Santa Clara’s main street. Everyone has work to do, but somehow seem to notice the absence of one single person. And I remind them that I am still here, that I will be here through the end of March and COS (close of service) on April 2. But I think they don’t believe me. Or I think they think my plans will change. So I just have to keep reminding them that I am still here.

But, as I am still here, it has dawned on me that it is not the same. Due to an unfortunate menstrual cycle last week, I came into the office early which puts me at almost 2 weeks out of my site. The last time I was gone from my site for 2 weeks was for EIST (Early In-Service Training) 2 years ago. I suppose I was gone for 2 weeks for my visit home in November compounded with a long stay in the office upon my return, but I’ve never been in the country but out of site for this long. When I’ve been in Guatemala, except in the case of short trainings or visits to the office, I have been in Santa Clara making lunch of papas con chile pimiento for the last two years.

Now with my change of role in my extension, I am working more in the office and don’t have to be every afternoon in the schools. Last year grad school was a far-off, distant idea and now I have submitted all the necessary applications and have just to wait. In theory I will be in Santa Clara in February and March, but my presence in site will be dependent on the willingness of the teachers to elect to work with me.

And, on top of this realization, I saw the layer peeled back on Peace Corps in a new way. I’m bringing my experience of two years in el campo and all that it entails to the conference table where the big bosses sit. For a whole week. Currently our project framework needs to be strengthened because co-teaching has not been achievable for volunteers (for a number of reasons and factors). But the main reason is the challenge of getting the teachers to co-teach with us. I see that the project will improve tremendously because, as a group, we are willing to look at the realities of the work and try to brainstorm ways to fix them. And then, the reality stung a little. Why did I struggle two years to try to get students to listen to me as I read them the descriptions of each part of the female and male anatomy when this project framework is not tenable? We are making a plan for the volunteers who arrive in 2020. It felt sad to see my 2-year investment fade into the background as we took a red pen to the existing marco de trabajo. Yes, it’s not really that way and my students learned from me blah blah blah but coulda been so much better with a better job description. Add it to the list of shoulda woulda coulda.

Meanwhile, Abuelita is in Santa Clara. She cuts the firewood with a heavy ax, feeds the chickens and waits for my host mom and sister to come home from harvesting avocados or coffee in the fields. The slow, professionally frustrating life I lived for two years is fading in the background, too. Yes I have three months left in service but I can already sense my connection to my community, Santa Clara La Laguna, stiffening like bread that’s sat out too long. And I don’t know if that is because chooses two years for a reason, or because it’s simply time for me to move on, but I am not the person in this country that I was two years ago.

The change feels sudden though I’ve only been counting down the days to the end of service since it started (See: Me and Time and the tango of fate). Even on the best, most beautiful days, I held the image of the end of service at the forefront of my mind throughout these last two years. Being in the pueblo was often wonderful but never as easy or as comfortable as being back in the States or with family or somewhere speaking English.

And now to add in this very unexpected and very wonderful gentleman caller into this garden variety of feelings and I’m not sure if I want to pump the breaks or stop the clock entirely. Until I hear from grad schools, I will be one step closer to having a next step. Until then I sit at a fancy conference room with coffee and tea service around a UFO conference phone, revising a new version of the Youth in Development project I won’t ever carry out. Waiting. And while that is super exciting and rewarding in it’s own right, it’s just weird. There are expiration dates written on every volunteer and I’ve been lucky to make it this far, and now I just feel confused about what part of this country I call home. Maybe I feel confused about what I call home, period. But that is not new.

And here I am in the Hotel Mirador, of all places, with a room to myself, a strong wifi connection and no noise in the hall… I don’t understand it. I am watching Netflix and flipping through Instagram on my phone without interruption. I think I’m the only PCV in the whole building, and I don’t think that’s true but it feels like it. And I’ve always dreamed of the Mirador being this way but now it doesn’t feel like a relief at all. I don’t like it. Where is the discomfort, the feeling that I am an introvert at any moment about to wilt from being in a room with 4 other volunteers splitting a Domino’s pizza and talking about their sex lives and bowel movements. WHAT IS GOING ON?

Change. Change is going on. And I am not sure what to think.