Well, oh faithful readers, it's been a little while since my last post. A lot has happened, I have lost my bank card, got stranded for a while in someone else's site. I am organizing a workshop for a bunch of associations. I joined a fantasy football league. I identified an exciting lo-tech super green solution for a problem my community has with heating. I secured a commitment from the department of water and forests to help my community start an experimental fuel wood grove. A lot has happened.
On the other hand, a lot has stayed the same. I am still hanging out in the same site with the same people, and having the same conversations. It's something that I hear from a lot of other volunteers aside from myself. "Why do we always have the same conversations?" The people in my site seem to like me, but the fact is that there is only so much we have in common. People here remind me of people in small town America in certain respects. They're content, settled, and largely unconcerned with life outside of this town. This is not to say that they don't have problems sometimes, that they don't go anywhere ever, or that they are apathetic. However, there is a certain investment in place that just doesn't register with most PCVs.
What I mean by all this is that there are certain people who are willing to leave everything they know and love behind to do something they think will be incredible. There are certain people who will not do that, and very often think the former type is a little bit nuts. Oddly enough, joining the Peace Corps is one way that the former personality type is almost guaranteed to run into the latter. As a matter of fact, most health and environment volunteers are dropped right smack into the middle of tiny villages full of them.
We, the adventurous "leave it all behind" type love to talk about the places we have been, the places we want to go, and adventures we want to have. Basically we're unapologetic dreamers and we talk like it. The people that we live with discuss things like who is talking/feuding with whom, the price their crops will fetch, the weather, and the price of transport. These are all valuable conversations to have if one lives in a small farming town to be sure, but after a while it becomes a little repetitive. You add to that a sizeable cultural and linguistic divide and things can get a little weird.
That said, there are definitely moments that bring us all together. I experienced this for the first time yesterday. My fellow environment volunteers and I have spent the last three weeks organizing a workshop for local associations to educate them about some of the principals behind successful projects. We discussed things like group dynamics, community involvement, and monitoring/evaluation techniques. It was really rewarding to be able to involve our local associations in a dialogue not only with ourselves, but with each other. Just when I thought we had nothing in common I find that we are all looking to do the same thing, and that we can find common ground.
Now, finally, I have a direct concrete answer for why I'm here. I'm here because it's possible for people who don't completely understand each other to work together. I'm here because we can do good, and we can find understanding. I'm here because I believe, as do all volunteers, that we have more in common than not. It's nice to finally have all this affirmed by completing a successful project; no matter how small.
