Am I a bad volunteer?
Is what I'm doing here meaningful?
Am I a disappointment to my community? To myself?
I end most days wrestling with these questions. At times, the answers I arrive at make me feel better. At others, they make me feel worse. The inevitably of self-doubt is one of the most underrated, trying demons of Peace Corps' service.
I remember my first day in service, we had a RPCV speak with us: "I felt like a bad volunteer every day in service."
I scoffed. How was that possible? You're a good volunteer just by being here. My personal goals for service were modest: Stay the entire 27 months. Feel comfortable calling my community home. Exchange cultures as well as I could. If some pupils learned to speak or read English a little bit better, more power to them. If some teachers saw a new teaching style that didn't involve corporal punishment, so much the better. I wasn't here to change my community -- I just wanted to be a part of it.
I had visions of dinners with my neighbors. Sitting around a bonfire and playing cards with local friends. I anticipated a Cheers like "Everybody would know my name" small, tight-knit community into which I would, through a bit of effort, seamlessly blend. Maybe I'd even have a child (or two) named after me, but I didn't want to get ambitious.
9 months later, I can write, like a seasoned volunteer, that no bar is too low when it comes to setting your expectations for service. Instead of ending days drifting off in a sleepy peace in a cradle of a civilization that has adopted me as one of its own, I, more often than not, restlessly wrestle with what I perceive as the day's failures. I think about all that I could have done to be a better volunteer. I worry that I've plateaued in my integration, my language skills, my impact on my community. I feel selfish for taking time to myself, or I feel stressed for pushing myself too hard in the community. I have yet to find a satisfying compromise. A haunting feeling of guilt has become my constant adversary at site.
Let me take D.E.A.R. Day, arguably my most productive and impactful day at site, as an example.
I planned D.E.A.R. Day at my school. I showed up around 9:00 AM, and from 9:00 AM until 3:30 PM I was hard in D.E.A.R.-Day-Mode. I coordinated meetings. I had meetings. I got every single teacher to commit to being involved. I planned a morning assembly. I picked out hundreds of books, organized them, and lugged them across campus where I re-organized them by individual classes. I took tea and ate lunch with my teachers. I had a second lunch with my supervisor when we had our meeting because it was rude not to eat with everyone else. I ate posho and beans with my hands twice.
Impressive, right?
But then… at 3:30 PM I went home. Shut the door to my house. And did not re-open it for the rest of the night. That's 7 hours of hermitude.
For the first hour or two, it was fine. I showered, congratulated myself on such a productive day, and gave myself leave to enjoy some much deserved R&R. Then I ate 3/4th of a gargantuan Hershey's Cookies-'n-Cream bar and I think that's where things really began to go downhill. 1 to 2 hours rolled into 3 and 5. I played ukulele. I read. I journaled. I watched 4 episodes of "Archer". The digression started to get really aggressive until I forced myself to get off my couch, make dinner, put on some embarrassing music and start drinking (I'm not saying I am the poster child for Peace Corps Uganda, but I'll let every person be their own judge…).
And, this whole time, in the background, I can hear people around my house. I know there's a religious/festival/revival kind of thing going on the soccer pitch near my house. There's a huge neighborhood around my house I haven't explored. There is so much I could be doing to integrate into the community. And here I am barricaded in my house, with my laptop, eating my weight in chocolate.
I went to sleep that night and wrestled with my questions again, thinking of all the ways I could have been better. Am I really integrated if I don't feel comfortable leaving my house after dark? Am I really a part of the community if I don't want to attend festivals that take place near my house because I'm watching a TV show? Am I really a successful volunteer if 6 hours at school necessitates 7 hours of personal time?
On and on and on. You could drown in the current of self-doubt where even the shiniest moments of achievement are prey for inadequacy.
This struggle is nothing new. Back in homestay, when I lived with a Ugandan family, I'd spend all day in language training trying desperately to pick up enough Lugbarati to make it through a 10 second conversation. I would come home exhausted, hot and mentally at capacity. But the minute I went into my room and shut the door, I couldn't relax. It wasn't FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that stressed me out, it was guilt. Any time I didn't spend with my host family made me feel guilty. I felt guilty for isolating myself. For not trying to bond with my family.
At site, any time I'm not outside interacting with Ugandans, I feel guilty. Good Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to spend their free time sitting around under a tree sharing themselves with their neighbors. They're supposed to be a treasure in their community: Fluent in the language and friendly with the locals. They're supposed to have HCN best friends, feel like "one of" their host family and have local shop owners invite them to come and share food when they pass through the market. They're supposed to attend weddings, funerals and birthdays.
Good volunteers do not get drunk while listening to Avicii and setting the record for most "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episodes watched in 1 living-room sitting.
It is too easy to become trapped in an unsustainable reality where, as a volunteer, you feel uncomfortable outside your house as you try to navigate work, culture shock, etc. But then coming inside is almost worse. You think of all you could be doing, you can't recharge, you're not integrating and the struggle leaves you feeling both exhausted and unhappy. For me, it's easy to feel like this in spite of how productive I might have been, or will be, at another point in the day.
This can be compounded within the Peace Corps community with what can be called the "comparison game", that nagging feeling that everyone else is doing more -- it might surprise you to learn that few volunteers publicize when they're wrestling with the meaning of their service.
It is also one of the hardest things to communicate to those at home. Being in Peace Corps sounds like it's enough. It seems like just being here is enough. That's how I felt anyway… until I in it. It's a blessing and a curse of most Peace Corps volunteers that we want to help and we never feel like we're doing enough. It's not surprising to me that many people leave feeling that way -- that they're wasting, or wasted, their time here. Within the bubble of service, I understand that. I've come close to it myself, and still continue to.
It's hard to admit, to anyone, that you feel like you're struggling at site. It's hard to admit you might not be as close with your teachers as you'd like. Or that you're not sure you're making an impact beyond your presence. It's hard to articulate that you aren't living up to all, or even any, of your expectations. That you might be falling behind other volunteers who are doing more, handling the stresses better, making a lasting change when you're just trying to make it from one day to the next. Maybe not every day, but many days.
I'm lucky to have a great support system here and at home. I've found caring, candid people who affirm for me that I am enough. What I am doing is enough. Showing up to teach, giving my lessons my best effort, being open, respectful, and polite to my fellow teachers, trying to balance integration with self-care. It's all enough. I think having that support system, managing your expectations, receiving external affirmation and perspective, and developing a heck of a lot of internal moxy is such a pivotal part of the Peace Corps experience.
Recently, I was asked: How do you define success from a PCV's perspective?
After 9 months in service, here is my response:
"I've struggled a lot with this question. I feel like there are many ways to be a successful PCV: Exemplary integration, impressive language skills, projects that improve the aesthetics or resources of a school, teaching and earning the respect of your pupils.
Often, though, I feel that I've failed to be a successful volunteer in any one of these respects. I feel that my language skills are poor, my integration is fine in some ways, but clearly lacking in others. I haven't taken on any projects to improve my library or other resources/aesthetics at my school. I've spent my time and energy trying to teach P4 pupils phonics, and I think I've tried faithfully to implement and use positive discipline effectively, and tried to improve the reading culture as well as I can. This all being said, I feel that I fail frequently to be an effective teacher, some days I think I'm too strict and others too lenient. I feel sometimes that I spend more time trying to regain control of my classroom than actually teaching in it. I worry that I won't ever be an effective teacher.
These struggles have forced me to re-evaluate what it means to be successful. I think being successful is showing up to site, day after day, and working hard at whatever it is you've put your mind to. I think it means trying to cultivate a genuine appreciation and respect for your coworkers. I think it means challenging yourself to re-evaluate your assumptions about what is "good" and what is "bad". What is something that needs to be changed, and what is something that should be understood further. I think being successful means not giving up after a day, or days, of feeling unsuccessful. I think being a successful Peace Corps volunteer means being able to put yourself and your work in perspective: You cannot change a community or yourself in a day, a week, or two years. All you can do is show up, give it your all, and hope that when you leave your mind, and the minds of those around you, have been opened in a way that makes the world a little bit better. Being successful means being knocked down, and remembering that the best way to be a successful volunteer is to respond with grace, empathy and, above all, resiliency.
In this respect, I think I am a successful volunteer."
And, in spite of it all, I do.
^^ The face of a successful Peace Corps Volunteer ^^
