Don´t worry. I am a professional.

During training, the Peace Corps technical trainer often told us, “You are professionals. As soon as you stepped foot off of the plane, you became professionals. When you arrive in your sites, everyone will assume that you are a professional, and that is what you should tell them.”

One problem – I don’t feel like a professional. Do a business degree, internships and a long list of extracurricular activities make me an ecotourism professional? Do they make me qualified to give advice to others about sustainable community tourism? Do they make me an expert on trash management systems and environmental education? For the most part, I think not. The beginning of Peace Corps service is a time of doubt and self-analysis. The great part is that so far no one has seemed to notice that I don’t really know what I am doing.

I came across a quote by Mark Jenkins as I was reading his book The Hard Way. It is an astonishingly accurate depiction of my current situation.

¨Perhaps, at the time, in our hearts, we do have an inkling that we are only just beginning, but we don’t want to admit it. We can’t. To admit that would be to admit that you don’t know what you’re doing, which would be to admit that you have a long way to go, which would make the journey appear so daunting as to stymie even starting out. Better to believe you know what you’re doing and keep doing it until you do.¨

If that isn’t truth, then I don’t know what is. The first step is always the most difficult, but we all have to start somewhere. All great leaders had their starting points, their first missteps. Barack Obama, the great orator, once gave his very first speech.

I may walk around blubbering in Q’eqchi, saying things like “I got tired, I’m hungry, and do you want to play?” but recently I managed to teach a local community tourism organization how to use a work plan, and that is a start. What I found incredible is that this organization, which has identified, organized and promoted a group of 6 tourism sites in the area that I live, has NEVER used a work plan. Things that we may take for granted as a normal course of action in the United States are not always self-evident in Guatemala.

I know I probably won’t get much done during the first 6 months, or maybe even during the first year, at my site while I struggle to learn Q’eqchi, but I help out where I can. I am teaching English to the guides in my community and simply am being present in the moment, showing others that I am here to live and work with them. If this is a world of “fake it until you make it,” I may just be a professional after all.

The path that leads to the caves. Since I can walk across my entire town in 3 minutes, I sometimes walk to the caves to escape.

Insects carrying leaves.