Saturday, October 3, 2009

What were you expecting? Part II

When joining the Peace Corps, the advice I heard over and over and over again was “try not to have expectations.” It’s excellent advice but nearly impossible to follow, especially for someone like me who looooves to daydream. Those first months in training and as I was adjusting to my site, I built up an expectation that the first year would be difficult but once I passed that magical one year mark that my second year would be easy. I thought I would have it all figured out and have my life perfectly in place- I would be used to the language and the people, be comfortable with my friends and my work environment, and plugging along smoothly on those big secondary projects that everyone seems to do in their second year.

However, I recently have found myself dealing with homesickness greater than in those first six months of service and battling back the desire to just get through these next nine months whatever way I can. Instead of feeling at home in Nicaragua, I felt like I was half out the door already and it surprised and dismayed me.

Luckily I had a little visit planned to those cool, green central mountain highlands to teach a ballet class to the girls group another volunteer has organized. Although it was a quick visit, it made me realize that I’m not the only one who is mentally checking out, whether we want to or not. Stephanie also made me realize that maybe the best way to deal with that strong desire to be back home is to really get into work here – to find the projects I really want to do and keep myself occupied and just watch the time fly by. I’ve returned to site with a renewed desire to get something accomplished in these coming months and to enjoy the parts of Nicaragua that I truly love.

And the ballet class itself was a blast to do! I’ve hesitated and worried about trying to start a class here in-site because of the logistics of footwear, floors, time, music, and participation. To go and do one isolated class with a group of girls who showed up entirely inappropriately dressed, on a concrete floor, without music because the power went out is one thing and trying to establish an ongoing class is another. I’m more motivated to try now, but also especially concerned after watching this group of seven girls run up against something challenging and see almost all of them sitting on the floor, decidedly defeated by the end.

Here are some pictures, the non-participaters became the photographers:






And our awesomely posed group shot:


And the vistas around Esquipulas:


Ending note: when I started my blog I didn’t want to present a totally sugar-coated view of Peace Corps life. Reading blogs before I left, I rarely read anything negative but I felt that I really wanted to hear about the tough parts. So this is my attempt at being real about my service. However, the real Real Story is that I can now communicate easily and comfortably in Spanish, I AM comfortable in my site, in my house, and with many of the people I interact with on a daily basis, and while working in the public schools is and always will be a challenge, I do feel like I can do my job effectively and it doesn’t leave me completely drained at the end of the day like it used to. I’m trying to get some cool secondary projects going and although I often feel like I’m not doing as much as I could be, I don’t know how I would fit in much more without overdoing it. I’ve learned that the second year isn’t easy, it just presents different challenges than the first.

2 comments:

Jenn Henry said...

These dancing pictures make me really happy!!! I have really happy memories of you dancing and it looks like everyone is having fun. Way to go!

a said...

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!! TE AMO y TE EXTRANO