Soundtrack for the blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzuCOCZuS_A
“No, I won’t give up. No, I won’t break down. Sooner than it seems life turns around. And I will be strong, even if it all goes wrong. When I’m standing in the dark, I’ll still believe. Someone’s watching over me.”
As I was meandering around our house, doing my usual nightly routine of killing all ‘dem “mook” (i.e. mosquitoes that are fierce, fast, and plentiful around here), I caught myself humming this catchy series of lines from the one, the only, the early Hilary Duff of the 2000s. And I paused to think, in my semi-dazed, very exhausted-from-school state: that has very much been the crux of the Peace Corps experience.
I’ve stayed relatively silent in the blogosphere realm of things about Peace Corps. Perhaps because it is a far cry from how it is often marketed. It is tough, the burdens of being a woman in a very conservative culture can be stifling, and it amazes me that so many of us are still here. We came, around 60 strong, and have lost approximately nine volunteers (administrative separations or ET’ing…early termination). And yet, for those of us who have decided to stay, I think we are learning more about ourselves and our country of service than we ever imagined possible in four months that seemingly stretched past eternity on those slow, sluggish days of doing nothing around our house, but now seems like both a lifetime and a quick moment, lost in the blink of an eye.
A close friend, professor, RPCV, and arbiter of wisdom, Thomas Kelley, once sat me down at Caribou Coffee (y’all still stateside, with access to this place, in the winter season, please order something peppermint or pumpkin related, in my honor), and very seriously told me: “Liz, write every day.” His advice is exactly what I needed. I have been loathe to write. I suppose I’ve been waiting for that moment. That Peace Corps light bulb. That elusive “this is why I’m here!” moment. Or, for the extremely hard days to pass, when I wonder “wait, … why am I here?” We’ve all had both, erring heavily on the latter side of things. But perhaps what I’ve been learning, slowly, steadily, and bumpily (say hey to the emotional roller coaster that is service) is simply being okay with the awkward, the uncertain, the uncomfortable, the weird, the …fishy (welcome to khmer food, say hey), and that wicked fast turnaround that can be your day.
Yesterday, I returned home from school, absolutely shattered (say hey, UK, I will keep some of your phrases). I turned a neglectful eye away from my hamper, awaiting some good-olde end of the day hand washing, and instead wistfully told my host mom “I’m going for a walk”…but in khmer. You know how it goes, with the dahl ling routine (the phrase to visit / to take a walk, actually means “walk play” – it’s a very exciting life, along this dusty road, I tell you). Once I began my noble trek, naturally, not twenty feet away were ten of the local kids, who erupted into gleeful cheers of “hello!!” and frantic hand waving, as if afraid I would disappear in a flash (which, in their experience, is probably warranted, given how frequently I’m frantically pedaling to school or town, given my inability to be on time). But this time, I lingered. Then, naturally, I mirrored their enthusiasm. Which turned into jumping around a pile of hay, deciding that flinging it at several children, when surrounded by now twenty, was a good idea, … later getting semi-buried in all the hay these children were capable of throwing at me, and ending our good time with a tickle fest (under a rainbow, no less). I returned home grinning, and my mother contentedly welcomed me with “sabai ahhht?” (“are you happy?”). Of course, the natural response was yes.
Those moments of glee, interspersed between the frustration, exhaustion, linguistic struggs (that define my everyday, say heyyy to bad pronunciation), and structural barriers to education, are what we all need to cling to during service. It is to my community, those gleeful children, those daily reminders of what happiness can look like – if only you are willing to chase it, and what greeting life with an open heart can do.
I’m not going to lie, there are days when I need to simply go to my room and crash for a two hour long nap, to watch some trashy tv, to make a frantic phone call home to my mother to complain about how exhausting it can be to experience (for once, white privilege in America, huh) the role of the “exotic other” in the eyes of Khmer men. But so, too, are there evenings when I just chill with my family after cooking dinner, enjoying their laughter – when I go back to my room and see several missed calls from my lovely host mother in Sa’ang (our first training site). And I remember: we are not here for outputs, for baseline productivity, for overcoming the broken Khmer English education system to get kids to dot the I’s and cross the t’, for making our counterpart teachers care about education (and yet I keep trying. The exhaustion). We are here for the relationships. The understanding. Bridging cultures. Sharing knowledge. But in so many ways, to give thanks for difference. For learning. For understanding – and for appreciating each other.
Here’s to wishing you and yours a lovely thanksgiving.
Ps: It’s official. Making my one stop to the good ‘ol US-to-the-struggling-A (#Ferguson) this April! :)
All my best,
Liz








