Double Reintegration

Long post ahead y’all, you’ve been warned!

They call the first 3 months of Peace Corps Service at your site the “Integration Period.” It’s supposed to be a time where you spend doing little project-related work so you can focus on getting to know the language, your host family, your village and the people in it, and figuring out your project, work priorities, and where you fit in the grand scheme of things. It’s supposed to be somewhat relaxing, mostly due to the fact that you have a lot of free time since you haven’t figured out anything about work yet. For some people, that’s true. For others, it’s the complete opposite, and all that free time leaves you going a little bit stir crazy. Can you guess which boat I was in? Absolutely, unequivocally, the latter.

The “Integration Period” is often seen as one of the most difficult times of Peace Corps Service, up there with PST (Pre-Service Training) and nearing COS (Close of Service). I did not particularly enjoy PST. Sure, there were some really great times, and I wouldn’t trade the experiences I had with the absolutely incredible members of BH4 (my cohort) for the world. There were also some awful times, like when my gut bacteria changed about a month and a half in and I felt like I had food poisoning for 3 days. Compared to my first 3 months at site? PST was a cakewalk.

Those of you who know me even moderately well know that I’m a busybody. I hate not being busy, it drives me nuts. I would rather see 8 things on my calendar for a single day and be running from place to place all day long than see that day empty, any day. So when I tell you I read more than 20 books (yes, I do have a running list) during that first 3 months and took about as many naps as a cat during that time, you can understand how much free time I had. It drove me nuts. At the same time, I had this weird anxiety about going out into my village and meeting people. Again, those of you know who me are probably scratching your heads right now thinking, “Really?” because you know I love going out and meeting people. Going out to visit in my village now is one of my favorite things here, but in the beginning, I was really self-conscious about it. See, Peace Corps makes you do, think, and feel things that you likely wouldn’t have normally done, thought, or felt otherwise. It made me feel insecure about leaving my house for awhile, because I wasn’t sure I would be able to effectively communicate with people. It made me anxious about a lot of situations that I normally would have jumped head-first into. It made me think that I wasn’t as much of an extrovert as I’ve always thought. Those are all things that I would not use to describe myself. I still don’t, especially since most of those things have passed, but some of the anxiety is still there. I’ve never been an anxious person and I don’t like feeling that way, but I find that some of it is still present. I really noticed it when I visited the States over Christmas. I was a much more anxious driver than I’ve ever been, and I didn’t like it. Part of that might have come from driving a rental car for 3 weeks, but I think there was more to it than that. Anyway, the point of all this being, the first 3 months were really hard for me. The hardest of my Peace Corps experience, and potentially working life, so far.

That being said, I wouldn’t trade that period for the world, because it helped me get to where I am now, which is comfortable, integrated, and absolutely loving where I am and what I’m doing. I can’t tell you how many times we were told “Peace Corps is the hardest job you’ll ever love” before going to our sites. I believed it to be true the first time I heard it, but that phrase is one of those things you need to experience to truly appreciate. Peace Corps is absolutely the hardest job I have ever, and may ever, have. It is also the job that I’ve loved the absolute most. I know I’m where I’m supposed to be right now, and on the really hard days, that helps to keep me going.

So why am I going all the way back to my first 3 months when I’m now well over a year in? Well, I wanted to give some context (sorry, a lot of context, y’all know I’m awful at being concise) for what I’m about to say. The last month has (while paling in comparison) really reminded me of those first 3 months in my site. It has been pretty difficult for me in a lot of different ways. Sorry y’all, this is not a super happy post in general, though I will throw in some awesome stuff at the end. Peace Corps isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it’s damn hard sometimes, and I can’t (and won’t) sugarcoat that. I’ve undergone a veritable crap-top of personal growth while here, and part of that has been realizing (and becoming okay with that fact) that it’s okay for things to not be okay sometimes. It’s life. It’s also okay, and frankly good (read: cathartic), to talk about it sometimes. I’m okay with saying it now. The last month has been rough.

December started out great, but it took me out of my village a lot, something I don’t particularly like. I love it here, and when I’m gone I feel like I’m not doing my job, even if I’m leaving TO do my job. Nature of the beast, I guess. I had planned to go on leave to the States starting December 13 for 3 weeks, something I was fairly anxious about. I’d never left the village for that long since coming here, and I knew I was going to miss it. I left the village on a high note though, playing Santa in the annual school Christmas Pageant the night of the 12^th. It was absolutely nuts, but it was a blast. After that, I said goodbye to my host family and left early the next morning.

My 3 weeks in the States was great, and it was just the right amount of time. I actually did very little work, had plenty of time to relax, and while I didn’t get to see everyone, I did get to see a lot of my family and friends, which was amazing. The weird part was in coming back. I’ll be honest, it felt like I didn’t really belong in the States a lot of the time. I’ve heard a lot of people who have done study aboard or a lot of travel utter something similar to this, and I never really understood it until it hit me. I’ll never forget flying into Fort Lauderdale with my buddy Nick, coming down over acres and acres of homes, businesses, streets, and lights, feeling like it was totally foreign. That culture shock hit me right away. I was going to have to reintegrate to the States over the next 3 weeks, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

Reintegration went, in a word, okay. There were a lot of times where I felt overwhelmed with everything around me, even if there wasn’t actually anything going on. One of the weeks I was back, I was in St. Paul staying with the Shackeltons, and had to drive out to Bloomington for a TSA pre-check screening. I hadn’t eaten anything yet that morning, so by the time I was done, I was hungry and looking to get some food. Such a simple thing, but driving around Bloomington that day was actually pretty stressful. I had no idea where to start, there were just so many places to go everywhere I turned. I ended up deciding to get some Caribou first, thinking that was a good place to start. I parked in the lot and sat there for a minute, just collecting myself. Got my coffee and was getting set to leave, when I noticed a Bruegger’s in the next lot over. 90% of the reason I got Bruegger’s that day was because it was so close and the easiest thing to do, I didn’t know how to go about figuring out where to eat if I didn’t just do that. So I did.

There were a lot of little things like that that were just super weird and slightly uncomfortable for me. It happened throughout the entire trip, and was a big reason why I was content to relax and do nothing as frequently as I did, which is not me at all. I love going out and being social, but relaxing meant I didn’t have to go out and deal with those little things. Of course, I couldn’t do that the whole time, and I didn’t. I went out plenty. I had to, and I’m glad I did. Taking the easy way is almost never the best way, and I’m not one to half-ass things.

Despite all of this though, my time in the States was great. Seeing everyone and being home for Christmas was wonderful, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, even if I knew all of the above stuff in advance. Near the end though, I was ready to head back home to Belize. At the same time though, I was a little nervous about it.

I was damn excited to come back to Belize, but when I got here, everything felt just a little bit off. Like something had changed, and it wasn’t the same Belize I had left just 3 weeks before. I was suddenly nervous about going back to the village I loved and seeing everyone. Thinking about it now, it was completely unfounded, and I was being ridiculous worrying about it. But worry I did, and it colored my first week back here. Those same odd feelings of being anxious about leaving the house were back, if only for a short while. There are a lot of things going on in the village right now, so there’s plenty of work for me to do from home, work that needed to be done. I used that as a crutch the first couple of days back though, and didn’t go out much. It felt like I had to reintegrate here now. Again. I wasn’t prepared for that at all, and the first few days were really weird for me.

But I couldn’t stay sitting in my room forever. I had things to do, and people that hadn’t seen me in almost a month that wanted to reconnect. I had to go out. I had to rediscover how much I loved being out and about in my village. In a way, I’m glad it happened like this, because I got to feel those same feelings of relief and ecstasy that I got when I finally felt truly comfortable in my village, all over again. Nothing had changed, and I’m not sure why I was ever worried that it would have. These people still saw me as a member of their community, as a friend, as family, and as their Piis Koor.

Since those first few days back, things have improved drastically. Projects are moving, and I now hate being stuck in the house again. The latter actually made me realize that I can’t have a normal desk job when I get back to the States, it just doesn’t fit me. I derive too much joy from being out and about, connecting with people. Stifling that stifles me, and I’m just not as happy that way. Classic Peace Corps, still making me learn new things about myself a year and a half in. Suffice it to say though, I’m in a great place again. I love it here, and I couldn’t be happier.

So let’s end this on a happy note, with some rapid-fire awesomeness that’s been happening over the past few months (since I’m awful at keeping up with this thing nowadays).

• My CHW’s (Community Health Workers) and I put on a health fair in November that went crazy well, over 100 people showed up!
• I helped a local farmers group put on a football marathon (read: single elimination one day soccer tournament) to raise money to buy tools for the group. They raised over $1,200!
• I started my BRO (Boys Reaching Out) and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Clubs, and they’re freaking awesome. I love my kids.
• I’ve also been working on the BRO Task Force to plan BRO Camp coming up in April, and couldn’t be more amped to finally get to it!
• We’ve secured funding to build a fence around our health post, and once that’s done, looking at renovating it altogether!
• I’ve been asked to start teaching adult literacy classes, so that will probably start soon.
• I’ve been working on a Teacher’s Resource Center at my school along with my Principal, which will be mostly done after this weekend!
• My library project is FINALLY making moves! I’ve gotten some book donations in and some future ones secured, my committee is set (and hopefully gonna meet next weekend), the National Library Service wants to come down and meet with us to help us along, and we’ve started work on the grant for it!

Us b’i, a’an chixjunil re anawank, nakex inra!
(Alright, that’s all for now, I love you all!)

Bryan