One year has passed in CK (that’s what the title means).
This exact day one year ago is when I arrived in my village, and I can’t
believe how much things have changed in that time. I think I look relatively
the same, albeit with shorter hair, sans beard, and significantly tanner (who
the hell knew I could actually tan?!) I may look the same, but I feel
significantly different. So let’s do something a little bit different this time
around, here’s a list of 10 things that I’ve learned or have changed about me
during my year in Belize…in no particular order.
1.
I love kids. I know that’s not a shocker, but, I
really love working with kids. And teaching. I really, really enjoy teaching
way more than I thought I was ever going to, and I think it’s in large part
because I’m honestly just having a blast with the kids here. There’s not much
more fun for me here than playing with the kids in my village, because they’re
wonderful. Super rude sometimes, but they’re kids, so it kind of goes with the
territory. By and large though, my kids are amazing and I love them. Did you
know I have over 500 of them now? Maybe this is how all teachers feel, but I
get to teach all of them, so I kind of feel like each of them is one of my
kids. I love it. I’m excited to have kids of my own…someday. Def not right now,
so don’t hold your breath on that happening anytime soon, haha.
2.
When I first got here, I went through a bit of
an internal crisis. The early parts of my life, I was pretty introverted, and
it wasn’t until high school that that really changed and I started to become
more extroverted. Throughout the rest of my life I’ve tended to be more on that
side, and assumed so until I got to my village. With everything going on and
all the changes happening in my life that came with coming here, there were
many, many days I really had to fight to try and force myself to get out of the
house and go out into the community. Quite a lot of those fights I lost, and
consequently, I spent a lot of time hanging out with my family or in my room. I
read a lot of books over those first few months. I started to think that maybe
I wasn’t an extrovert after all. But then I got better at the language, started
working, and met more people. I realized that my happiest days were always the
ones I was out and about visiting with people, and once I had enough of those
days under my belt, I didn’t need to fight with myself anymore. Nowadays I
still need some me time in the house every now and again, but I love going out
and visiting with people. I’ve realized that I’m more extroverted than I
thought, I was just anxious about stepping further out of my comfort zone than
I’ve ever done before. Now I don’t think twice about walking up to anyone’s
house here, or talking with anyone on the street, because I really enjoy it.
Once I knew I could communicate
effectively with people here, the barriers came crashing down. Visiting in the
village has become one of my favorite things here now, especially when it comes
to…
3.
Taking pictures. Most, if not all of you, have
known for a long time that I hate pictures. Particularly being in them. That
wasn’t always true though. When I was young (read: 5 or 6), I actually loved
taking pictures. I had this big ass Polaroid instant camera that I’d lug around
everywhere, and a photo album that I got for my birthday one year that took me
less than a year to fill. Somewhere along the way though, I lost my passion for
it, and it grew into a general dislike of pictures. Not sure why or how, but
that’s how it goes. “Ak re chi k’ama an” is what I’d say in Q’eqchi: It is what
it is. Anyway, that’s changed again here. I volunteered to take photos for
graduation here, and that has opened up a million doors. I had a blast doing it,
and I’ve met so many people in the village here because of it. Now I’m the
village photographer for anyone who wants me to print photos for them, and I
swear after every “photo shoot” I leave with a sore face from smiling so much.
Now I don’t really mind being in pictures either, I’ve kind of just gotten over
all of that. Crazy right?
4.
Patience really is a virtue. Things are really
hard here sometimes. I love my job, but it’s not easy, and often a really big
part of working through the challenges is being patient. I thought I was a
relatively patient person before coming here. After learning the hard way that
it was an essential skill in Peace Corps, I don’t think I was very patient at
all before coming here. Things tend to move slower here, and that’s fine. I
used to be extremely go-go-go all the time and loved that, but I can’t be that
here, and I’ve come to terms with that. Everything takes time, and schedules
aren’t everything (never thought I’d say that in a million years). Challenges
don’t always resolve quickly or easily, and take a lot of working through.
Without some patience, we’d all go a little crazy down here.
5.
Even if it doesn’t feel like it (because it
never does), the little things add up, and finding a way to vent is absolutely
essential. I didn’t realize how important this was until very recently. I can’t
write the details out on here, but a good portion of my work lately has been
immensely frustrating. It wasn’t until I vented all my frustrations to the
Q’eqchi volunteers a couple weeks back that could really move past the
situation, and I felt a lot better. A lot of things have been piling up lately,
and I didn’t realize it was all weighing me down until that happened. I’ve
never been one to want to lay my burdens upon someone else, I’d rather just
work through it on my own, but you can’t always do that. We definitely can’t do
that here, it’s too hard. I’m opening up to it more than I would’ve thought,
but I’m glad actually; the whole process is really cathartic.
6.
When you get into the Peace Corps, you have a
general idea of what’s it’s really about: sustainable development, integration,
promoting peace and friendship among cultures. While that’s all true, it’s a
far cry from hearing about it or having an idea of what that means, compared to
actually living it. It’s hard to be completely prepared for this, maybe
impossible unless you’ve done it once before and are coming back for seconds.
That being said, I’ve completely bought into it, and I love it. Like everyone
else, I came here with a million ideas of what I wanted to do in my village. It
didn’t take long to figure out that that’s not how this works at all, and I
really came to appreciate the idea of real integration and helping people to do
the work that they want to do. Now I won’t start a project unless someone in
the village wants to do it and is committed to seeing it through. It’s a really
cool feeling being able to start and complete a project like that.
7.
I love learning about different languages and
cultures, and consequently, my desire to travel has skyrocketed. I’ve always
enjoyed traveling, but most of it has been in the States, and now the travel
itch has me wanting to go everywhere! Since coming here, I’ve learned two new
languages (though I’m still learning a lot!), and am working on two more. I’ve
found that I really, really enjoy that aspect of my service.
8.
I seriously love every member of my cohort, they
really are family here. I can’t imagine going through this with anyone else,
and I’m always happy to see any one of them. I also seriously love my host
family, they’re easily the best part of my service here. I don’t know how I got
so lucky having two amazing host families (in training and in site), but my
time here would not be the same without them.
9.
I’ve discovered I need a lot less than I ever
thought I did to be comfortable. We use a pit latrine instead of a toilet, I
bathe in a bucket every night, I wash my clothes by hand at the creek, and
there was a three month stretch where we didn’t have electricity here. None of
that bothers/ed me even a little bit. In fact, I actually really enjoy bucket
bathing!
10.
While I’m usually so busy that I don’t notice
it, I do miss people back in the States sometimes. I don’t really miss living
there at all right now, but I do miss being able to see everyone regularly,
which is very different for me. I’ve moved around and lived away from home so
much, and have always liked to keep so busy that I often never really missed
others like people normally do when I was still in the States. It’s not
something I’ve ever liked to talk about because I think it makes me seem cold
and uncaring. I’m really not like that at all, and I do miss people
occasionally, I’ve always just been focused on being present in the moment that
I often don’t think about what’s outside of it. I’ve always been sort of
ashamed of that, but during my time here I’ve come to accept that that’s just
part of who I am. I don’t love people any less because of it, so I hope no one
takes offense to this, but its part of who I am and I’m not ashamed of that
anymore.
Welp, there we go. A year’s journey of personal growth, hard
work, and lots of changes. I’ve loved my time here more than I can put into
words, and I can’t imagine having been anywhere else for the past year. Just
like the first year it will absolutely be challenging, but I can’t wait to see
what the rest of my service will bring.
Love,
Bryan
