If I had two words to describe the challenges in Peace Corps, I would say: Existential Crisis.
I thought that my second year would be easier. I've confronted a lot of the cultural barriers, gotten over the hurdles of being a new teacher, figured out how to live confidently and comfortably. Now I just get to enjoy my time here.
Right?
Maybe that will be true eventually, but I've found my second year to bring a whole host of unique challenges. The biggest one being "what in the world I'm going to do for the rest of my service?"
Classic, right? I always seem to be in the throes of some new variation of "why-am-I-here-what-am-I-doing-is-this-worth-it-am-I-gonna-make-it?!?" crisis, but, c'est la Peace Corps. Unbridled freedom, unfamiliar culture, high expectations, and minimal structure does this to me apparently.
This struggle is why, when my parents lovingly prompted me to write blog post describing how much better service has gotten to counter some of my earlier posts, I hesitated. Service doesn't seem to be getting better or worse, my challenges, strategies, and victories just evolve.
Last year, for example, my goal was pretty straightforward, but the execution was hard. I wanted to teach phonics successfully to P4. That meant, teach 4 classes of 90 fourth-graders. I am proud to say, after many trials and tribulations, I succeeded.
(It's paid off too. The P5 pupils this year (the previous P4's), for the most part, know me and I have actually started to recognize kids on campus. It's been really gratifying to be able to feel a sense of belonging in that way. The new P4's had the luck of seeing a teacher who was confident in what she was doing and had a lot of the behavior management kinks from last year ironed out. Our first few lessons went very smoothly thanks to last year's experience.)
But this year, while I'm fairly confident that I'd be able to execute whatever I wanted to do, the new question is well... what do I want to do? Now that I know I can teach as a classroom teacher in this environment, do I want to?
I think the most appropriate version of my answer is the shortest: no.
A lot of factors contribute to why classroom teaching is not how I want to spend the rest of my service.
First, P4 already has an incredible English teacher. Madam Akello Norah is passionate and teaches English far better than I do. P4 is in great hands.
Second, P4 also already has 3 - 5+ additional teachers who have a full curriculum and rotate between classes, each trying to find enough time to get their lessons in around each other's schedules. While sometimes it's nice for me to be there as a place filler, I rarely feel comfortable competing for time with exceptional, hardworking, local teachers whose material is going to be tested on the end-of-year exams.
Third, as a classroom teacher I am, frankly, fairly ineffectual. I'm inexperienced and honestly unqualified to teach in a classroom (though our pre-service training did as good a job as it could of preparing me). But, more importantly, everything about me -- from my skin color to my accent to my behavior management system -- is completely foreign to the pupils. I imagine, to them, watching me teach is like watching a giraffe teach circus tricks in pig Latin. With the best of pupils, it would be hard to remain disciplined. With 90, it's almost impossible. My class could easily be renamed "Seconds Away from Anarchy."
While the fight is noble and has some benefits (exposure to a new teaching style, exposure to Western culture, listening to a native English speaker, etc.), I think there are more beneficial, less emotionally/mentally draining ways to spend my next 9 months. Ideally, ways that would retain many of these benefits while causing me to look forward to going to school.
So, with all of that, this second year has been a lot of identifying what my final months will look like. If I'm not going to be a classroom teacher, what am I going to do?
Some ideas I rejected:
Small Group Reading Intervention - I can't justify to myself spending 9 months working with only 20 out of 2,000 pupils.
Library Work - We already have a librarian and an incredibly well-organized/clean library and a check-out system (wow!).
Pen Pals - Not necessarily rejected, but put on hold. Logistically, there are a lot of snags in exchanging 300+ letters across the Atlantic. Even with the logistical issues put aside, I can't ask pupils to write letters every day -- we're going to need something more to do. Maybe a plan to revisit later.
After ruling those out, I came upon the idea of writing a grant to get computers at my school. That seemed worthwhile, but not quite enough to fill up 8 hours a day, not in the beginning phases anyway.
I turned to "extracurricular" Peace Corps Uganda projects. Not every volunteer is a "site rat", maybe I find my purpose in activities outside of my school community.
I'm already a member of the Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC), a committee that acts as a liaison group between staff and volunteers. Volunteer representatives address policy issues to staff. Together, we try to come to a compromise that satisfies all parties. (It's been great to finally put my Industrial and Labor Relations degree to good use.)
I'm also on a media team. We create videos to share the Peace Corps Uganda experience with people back home and partner organizations. That's been incredibly fulfilling and fun, and one of my closest friends, Richard, and I even have a really wonderful video to show for it! (Link coming very soon!)
These were great during term breaks, but there generally wasn't much going on with them during the school year. Understandable. I needed something more to occupy myself.
Peace Corps Uganda also has 5 "Support Groups" that each function to support volunteers in different ways during their service. For example, VAC is a volunteer support group that supports volunteers with policy issues, Diversity Committee works to support diverse volunteers who face unique challenges due to their identity, and Sexual Harassment Advocacy Committee (SHAC) works to support volunteers by acting as a resource when dealing with sexual harassment in-country.
These 5 support groups each have unique resources and connections within the volunteer/staff community. They also each have unique goals and vision for how they want to provide volunteer support in the upcoming year. But, unfortunately, these groups all function completely independently from each other.
So, I began planning a workshop that would bring all of the support groups in Peace Corps Uganda together to enable the groups to collaborate and provide better support overall. We were planning this workshop to take place with the media team present in order to help each support group create media to further their support (e.g. - Diversity committee making a video to show to volunteers during pre-service training about experiences of being a diverse volunteer).
So, great. Two committees to keep me busy during school breaks and, during the school year, a this support group workshop to organize and a grant to write.
Set!
Welllll, then budget cuts nixed the support group workshop, and apparently Uganda doesn't allow refurbished computers into the country? (What? Still looking into that one…)
Bummer.
My momentum was gone and I was back at square one.
Great.
Now, don't you fret, I have come up with a solution to my predicament, but I'm going to let you sweat it out a bit like I had to sweat it out waiting for it to come to me. Don't worry, I won't make you wait 3 months like I had to, but I'll end this blog post here as an ode to my life (now OUR lives) as a Peace Corps volunteer. The life of problem-solving, frustration, patience, anticipation, and, above all, resiliency.
Stay tuned for the solution coming to a blog post near you!
"An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions if their life (read: service) has meaning, purpose, or value. Pairs well with copious amounts of wine."
- Loosely adapted from a Google definition
