reflections on the day

June 11, 2009

Sometimes life is taking a deep breath and plunging in. That’s how I felt this morning once more as the mothers gathered together so I could start teaching them. I began my lesson on nutrition by introducing myself, then I started reading from my translation, trying to pronounce the words, hoping they understood it. Fortunately, a coworker was there, to repeat anything they did not understand and to expand on the subject.

If someone had told me a year ago I would be teaching a community about nutrition, HIV and family planning, holding English classes and conducting community assessments and interviews, I would have been intimidated and perhaps wondering how I would become qualified to do all this. Even now, when I think about what I do every week and what I will possibly be doing the next two years, I become a little terrified and I have to shut my mind and concentrate on what I am doing that day. Or sometimes, I have to just stop worrying and just do it. Because the alternative, that of not even trying, is many times worse than trying to do something and failing spectacularly. For example, the first time I taught a group of mothers, they did not understand a word I said. And I was speaking their language (or at least, some version of it)! In short, the lesson did not go well. As time went by, however, and as I taught more lessons, I started speaking more slowly, pronouncing the words more clearly, and remembering them. Now, when I teach a lesson in which I’m familiar, people can understand me and I can speak freely in Kinyarwanda for a few minutes without having to read my notes. And you can’t imagine how good of a feeling it is to be able to converse and teach in that language without having to read a translation from a piece of paper.

I’m not trying to sound all clichéd and inspirational. I’m trying to make a necessary point because if any of you guys reading are like me, then you need to hear this. Life is not safe; it’s not predictable or kind. If you want to make something of yourself, if you want to grow and learn, and leave behind something meaningful, then you have to take risks. You have to leave, for a time, whatever it is that makes you feel secure (your family, school, the living room couch) and make that gamble. It will change your life. Now I’m not saying that one decision will change your life. Instead, what changes your life is consistently overcoming your fears and taking chances. Take a chance and apply for that job or internship you think you will never get or that promotion at the office. Go out with that guy at the coffee shop although you’re afraid of getting hurt again. Sign up for that college class although you think you are not smart enough. Hey, apply for the Peace Corps. If you want to completely leave anything that could be called a safety zone, that’s one way to do it. I emphasize this point because, for many years, I played it safe and did not take many chances. I was afraid of not being talented or smart enough, of failing in general. I had so many excuses and reasons for not going anywhere significant in life. Fortunately, I realized this so I overcompensated slightly and did what could be considered either the smartest thing I’ve ever done or the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I decided to take a two-year volunteer position in a small African country thousands of miles from home and doing a job I had never done before in a language I had never heard of.

Yea, my life now is hard and new. Yea, I don’t know what I’m doing half of the time. I live and eat very poorly by American standards. I walk around half understood and half understanding, gossiped about and stared at. But when I think about these things, I start thinking about my fellow villagers. My life is hard but their’s is harder. Have you ever met someone so poor that he has to go out into the forests or countryside every day to try to find something to eat? His children have never gone to school or been vaccinated. Their clothes are literally falling off of their bodies. You probably wouldn’t even use those clothes for rags. Yea, my life is easier. And about being half understood, imagine living your whole life in one little village, struggling in the fields day by day to feed your family. There are few to no opportunities for advancement, education and a way out of that life. No one really cares or comes to try to make your life better. You don’t really have a voice.

When I start considering these things and thinking about the people I live with, I remember why I took that risk and joined the Peace Corps.