Meliorism

Meliorism (n)- the doctrine that the world tends to become better or may be made better by human effort

 I’m caught up in my privilege tonight. Not only as being a citizen of the developed world, purely by chance, but also my comparative luxury in my position here. I have so much, more than enough to live comfortably (and the extra money in my bank account here confirms it). 

Would it be so wrong to give a child a coin here, give someone a new bucket or tin of shoe polish there? 

I understand the problematic nature of external aid giving commodities freely, as well as the undesirable association of foreigners with aid/wealth/freebies. It feels so rude though, to deny people simple requests over and over again, especially when it would be so easy to grant them.

 Moreover, in the beginning of my service, it made sense to deny demanded gifts, so people would get to know me and understand the motivations of Peace Corps better. Halfway in, people clearly have not accepted that my role is not to give things and it doesn’t feel like people have any interest in getting to know me. 

I’m just realizing people here almost never ask me about my life prior, my interests, anything that makes me, me. I receive sweeping questions about happenings in the US or very specific questions on day-to-day life here (Mwaya kudi? <Where did you go?>, Mwadyang’a? <Do you eat this?>, Munakuya kudi? <Where are you going?>). 

Is this an element of collectivist culture, where one’s unique personality fades within the context of community? Is this because I’m an outsider, while everyone here has an intimate knowledge of each other’s histories, so it’s not thought to ask? Is it because I don’t ask enough? I’ve asked my host family and the children personal sorts of questions, but rarely adult acquaintances. Maybe I need to be trying more.

On the subject of giving, I feel like if people knew me as a person, they wouldn’t make grand demands. Small presents, like the kinds I give my host family, are an easy way for me to give back in a material way. 

Does it have to be giving back, in order to avoid the issue of aid dependency? I think it has to be incentive or payment. That implies I am benefiting from the transaction, which isn’t what I want either.

A few times, community members have used me to convince each other to participate in projects or programs they requested from me. “She has come all this way to help us, now we have to help her,” is how the argument usually goes. What I want is to be able to give, to share what little I have, with the community without any attachments or implications. 

I don’t know how to do that…The embassy grant perhaps? It’s a program from the US Embassy to give funds for community based projects…but it requires the community to be mobilized and organized. Otherwise, connecting sub communities to capacity building sources of funding? That makes me feel like I’m doing well at my job but not well at being a decent, generous human.

6 April 2018 

Equiponderate

Equiponderate (adj)- to be equal in weight, to balance

The past few days in the village have felt like a precarious battle between super-ego and id, to put it in the Freudian terms that are resonating best with me. The super ego is driven, wants to hold meetings even while it’s raining, can’t fall asleep because of anxiety about too much to do, wants to stick to an exercise plan without any modifications, and most importantly, feels guilty not only for taking things easy, but for all the work I haven’t done yet.

The id, on the other hand, is being self-serving and a little lazy. The id wants to stay in bed an extra hour, then spend all morning cooking or putzing around the house. It thinks asking for meetings now is over-reaching, when people are clearly busy in their fields most of the day. It is putting in the bare minimum so I can feel comfortable, rested, and not stressed. It feels anxious too, not about all that has to be done, but about sticking out to ask for others’ participation, about starting projects that might fail, and about pushing myself too far such that I’m wholly miserable.

The balance is coming out in surprising ways. I did the proper exercises, according to Ms. Super Ego, and then was so sore for the following two days that I couldn’t walk to go meet my counterpart. I was so ashamed of myself. This morning, sitting around knitting in a treasured patch of sunlight, clearly allowing the id to dominate, my counterpart came to find me and we sorted out our business. On days where the id dominated and I feel lazy/worthless, I keep telling myself that there are manifold more chances to be productive here. On days where the super ego wins, I feel tired and potentially neglected by my own self, ultimately so much more satisfied with myself. 

I’m wondering where this comes from- is a dominating super ego key to a strong work ethic or to the nature of the American labor force even? I certainly see duties being performed here but less to self than to parents, family, local leadership, or even to community. I, on the other hand, would of course be ashamed if I didn’t work hard for my village, but I think more ashamed by myself and maybe by my country than by the people here.

Where I’m struggling now is accurately recognizing which things are failures on my own part (lazy id) and which are situational failures for which I need to not blame myself (overactive super-ego). The question I keep asking in the mornings is “What more can I do today?” And then decide from there. It feels like walking a tightrope.

22 January 2018

Abaculus

Abaculus (n)- a small tile used for making mosaics.

Please enjoy some more abacula, small portions of the mosaic that makes serving as a Peace Corps volunteer such a rich experience.

31 December 2017

Today it feels like this community is doing far more to help me than I am doing to help them. On my own here, I’m rather helpless. How could I possibly build a chinsambu (kitchen hut) or a chimbushi (pit latrine) on my own, with no prior knowledge? When I’m SO far out of my comfort zone, how could I possibly grow big enough to not only take care of myself but help others, too?

All the same, I had a feeling walking around yesterday that this is my neighborhood, wild and undeveloped as it may be. I know my little roadside and have come to regard this as a place I’m familiar with, if not a place where I belong, so to speak.

7 January 2018

Small thoughts, again.

Sick sick sick sick sucks sucks sucks sucks

Part of me is saying GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE

Another part of me is saying you have to see it through, what would come now except disappointment?

Another part is saying “Just run away to Solwezi for a few days or South Africa for a few weeks.”

Another part is saying owwwwwwww.

7 January 2018

Things I have gained from Peace Corps (so far):

-an appreciation of how hard people work to survive

-valuation of friendships

-focus for some creative pursuits- jewelry, drawing, reading

-time for self-improvement- workouts, mindfulness, Torah

-increasingly confident people skills

-a new understanding of what a luxury boredom is

-courage to be alone with my thoughts

8 February 2018

While I was babysitting my petulant fire tonight, a piece of charcoal exploded and sent shrapnel shards into my face. One was 3mm from being in my eye. The sear of it shocked me but I immediately started crying from the fear of going blind. Sometimes I look at my life here and it makes total sense why Zambia has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.

7 April 2018

Although Peace Corps can feel interminable, returning to the village today after a one-month absence has brought small reminders of time’s unending passage. I finished a container of dental floss I opened from new last year. My mosquito net is no longer carpeted by dead bugs, a sign the insecticide is wearing out. My giant tub of washing powder is half-finished. The first time I was here, in this house, was one year ago. The passage of time thus far is helping me feel ready for the year ahead. The second half should be comparatively easy, right?

17 April 2018

It’s feeling alright to be back here in cozy little Chinyaji hut-home. I don’t know how to pinpoint why, exactly. I’m possibly feeling generally well after a strong course of antibiotics and the parasite meds. I’m possibly just exuberant about all the good things to come. I’m possibly feeling grateful and grounded, knowing that this next year is going to pass as all years do. I look around my hut, think about my role here, think about what my life looks like on an everyday basis, and am reminded of how fortunate I am. Even though this is maybe not the most comfortable life in the world, it’s not unmanageable and it’s not dangerous. I feel contented, for the most part, and am not regretting this experience. My dad asked me the other night if I am learning anything here. While no, I am not making scientific discoveries or even really adding to my knowledge base about fisheries, as was my hope, I have learned immeasurable volumes about humanity and about myself. My dad also told me he thinks I was pretty tough before starting Peace Corps. I can tell the difference a year here has made in my assertiveness and my patience (or simple acceptance, perhaps?). These two qualities together imply I not only can handle challenges that arise, but know how to pick my battles, too. 

Miasma

Miasma (n)- foul vapors from rotting matter

It has been a bit of a rough homecoming, as I anticipated, though for different reasons. Being greeted warmly and leaving network behind felt generally nice. I was thinking, to escape that feeling of refreshing e-mail every five minutes in anticipation of an expected message is a surprising relief. Amaama aired out and swept my house yesterday and greeted me with a warm hug and ruckus cheering.

Inside the house was another story. All my clean clothes on my shelves had grown a nice layer of mold, as well as my leather jewelry, shoes, and knife case. Yuck. My roof leaks substantially and my host family didn’t have the time to patch it, so there is a mildew smell over everything, including the spot next to my pillow. I slept the other way on my bed and I was bothered by a smell of cooked cabbage.

This morning, as I was washing my mildew-y clothes and my (also mildew-y) dirty clothes from before the trip, I found two dead, decomposing mice in my hamper. They had eaten through a shirt of mine, pooped everywhere, and were now just mats of wet fur with grubs and maggots wriggling through. I think it speaks volumes on my oversaturation with cabbage here that I thought weeks-old decomposing mice smelled like cooked cabbage. This may have been one of the more disgusting things I’ve dealt with in my life. 

But I dealt with it, washed my clothes, and have enough sunlight to hang them up to dry. Fingers crossed it stays that way! I want to wash my sheets tomorrow! I’m surviving but wow am I exhausted, even after ten full hours of sleep, plus a four hour nap yesterday. Yikes.

I had such trepidation about returning to my village. There was a moment at the Lusaka airport upon returning, after seeing scores of families joyously greeting their loved ones, where I just wanted to walk right back in and board a plane to somewhere I knew I would be loved and comfortable. I’m not sure if that was P.E. or San Jose but in that moment, it didn’t matter. In leaving the airport, it just felt like I was walking away from all I know and love.

The same feeling was present in Solwezi. I was dreading sacrificing network (because at that time, it did feel like a sacrifice. Now, not so much) and returning to the dietary limitations of the village. Now that I’m here, I feel much more comfortable and settled than I had remembered. Yes, moldy clothes, lugging water, and leaky roofs suck, but generally life is okay. I’m going to be okay. And I’ll be stronger for it.

28 December 2017

Pileus

Pileus (n)- the umbrella shaped portion of a mushroom, the cap

The bus pulls off to the side of the road, into a turn-out watched by a few dilapidated shops. It’s raining softly and steadily, making a lulling cocoon of hammering in the bus. Before the wheels stop, bodies are flying, leaping, bolting from under the tin awnings of the shops toward the bus. Windows fly open and passengers lean out both sides, like a plow has cleared the central aisle. 

The runners have reached the bus and proffer their wares: great globulous orbs of white and off-white and brown as large as chickens, as large as hubcaps, as large as full-term woman swollen with child. 

It’s mushroom season. 

Hands fly out the windows as the mushrooms are vaulted up and up to meet them, perfect umbrellas against the rain. Crumpled bills are cast down in return, mostly to the sellers that are owed. Such urgency: the mushrooms are few and the bus will not tarry long. 

As more of the luminous hubcaps are transferred on board, an earthy, subterranean smell starts to glide through the humid bus along with a palpable air of satisfaction. 

One young seller has handed up his mushroom but has not been rained in cash as the bus starts to pull away. With eyes cast upwards, the rain on his stern face looks like tears as he yells to the woman with his wares. She doesn’t hear or pretends not to as the bus pulls into the road. He runs alongside, jumping through the door before it closes and battling down the aisle through smiling people cradling fungus in their laps like babies. The woman still doesn’t seem to notice him imploring her for the money until three other men start to yell. With an oscitant wave, she tosses the money in his direction and he caracoles back towards the door. 

The bus doesn’t even stop as he leaps out the door into the rain. 

He jogs back towards the coven shops and waits for the next bus to pass through.

10 November 2017