In three simple words: change is hard. There are a million
ways to say that, to describe it, to illustrate just how difficult change is,
but sometimes simple is best. Change is hard.
We know that coming in to Peace Corps service, because we
know the job is hard. Again, the phrase they’ve told us from the beginning crops
back up, “Peace Corps is the hardest job you’ll ever love” – everyone who did
Peace Corps ever. It’s true though; we do development work, development work is
all about change, and change is hard. It’s only natural that our job will be
hard based on the work that we try to do. But we also know it inherently as
human beings. Have you ever had a nasty habit you’ve tried to quit a thousand
times and never succeeded? Of course, we all have one. For me (not that I’ve
ever truly tried with all I have to break it though), it’s biting my
fingernails. It’s not even a nervous habit for me; it’s just something I’ve always
done. Often it’s when I’m absent-mindedly thinking about something, because I
have this annoying need to chew on something, and my fingernails are always
readily available…even if they’re already shortened to the nubs. For you it
might be smoking, drinking (pop or alcohol!), watching TV, being too negative,
saying sorry too much, being late constantly, or a million other things that
people have tried to change over the years. The point is we’ve all failed at
something like that sometime, so we all know just how hard change is.
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| Mobile clinic day |
So if change is so damn hard, how does Peace Corps expect us
to do it? How
are people doing it?
How did the people before us do it? Well in my mind it always comes down to two
words: hope and persistence. Honestly, that’s what a lot of my job is here,
putting those two words into action, every single day. I’m an extrovert, but
some days I don’t feel like going out into the village, I want to just hide
myself in my hammock and read a book all day. On those days, it takes a lot of
those two words to get me out there: hope that what I’m doing is worth
something, and persistence in forcing myself to keep trying to accomplish some
good, even if I can’t see it. Thankfully I’m very much the optimist, so those
bad days are few and far between, but the need for those two words definitely
isn’t, and why I need them never changes. Sometimes though, even on the good
days, it’s hard to keep telling myself that. That’s when I think of my favorite
quote,
“Be the change that you wish to
see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi. That’s what keeps me going on the days
when I don’t know if I can.
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Picking up trash after a Special
Olympics Belize event |
The way I see it is this:
sometimes change can occur simply through education, and I hope that happens
quite a lot during my time here as a community health educator, but sometimes
it takes someone modeling the behavior you want to change, and it
always requires some sort of emotional
component (whether that’s self-determination, an end-goal, a personal
connection, etc.). That being said, I’m not naïve enough to believe education
alone will create the changes I’m here working toward, I firmly believe that it
will require personal connections and modeling the behavior. That’s what gets
me out of my room those days, knowing that if I’m not out working with the
people in my community, I’m not making any progress toward my goal of improving
community health in my village. This quote by Gandhi has always been my
favorite, but it resonates so much more with my life now doing what I do here.
If I want to help make changes in my village to improve health, I have to be
willing to make the journey right alongside the people I live and work with, showing
them by doing it myself or trying something new with them. It’s been great
motivation on both fronts: it helps get me out and about working, exercising,
or meeting people, and the more exposure I get with people in the village, the
more likely any changes I try to help with will succeed. I can only hope that
by the end of my two years here, my hope and persistence will have paid off at
least a little bit and I’ll leave CK a healthier place than it was when I came.
Best,
Bryan
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