JBrown

The Stone (Part 4)

2012-01-02T23:51:00.001-05:00

The viscous liquid went down more easily than I thought itwould. I had been warned that it would be vile and difficult to swallow. I, forsome reason, have an affinity for bitter drinks like India Pale Ales, and itwas not half bad. That is not to say the other half was good; it was somewherein between wretched and peculiar. The drink was given to me in somethingclosely resembling a miniature bucket, and I was able to down it in about 10minutes. Since the liquid needed time tosettle inside my body before it could illuminate my insides for the CAT scanmachine, the next step was to patiently wait.

The morphine had me feeling good. I continued to glare at Klike a maniacal circus clown and jabbered on about how I was feeling. K wasbemused at best.

At last the hour was upon me; it was time for the CAT scanto discover my fate. Incredibly awkward in my ravishing hospital gown and IVattached to my arm, I scooted to the edge of the bed. Careful to not catch theIV tube on anything, I twisted and turned until I successfully flopped into theproffered wheelchair. Slowly, the nurse wheeled me to the room that housed theominous CAT scan machine.

I’ve had the good fortune to be a visitor in many ahospital, so I was no stranger to being wheeled in a wheelchair. Bad thoughtsalways tend to go through my mind when I am in a wheelchair, not because I amin a hospital and there is something most likely wrong with me, but because ofthe speed at which nurses wheel his or her captive audience. Wheelchair speedis slow speed, much slower than the walking pace of a typical human being. For once,I would like a nurse to wheel me around and brightly chirp into my ear, “Jollygood. We’ll get you right to where you need to be going, and soon you will be outand about in the crisp, clear air, aye you will!”

This does not happen.

Instead, the pace is slow, and the wheelchair participant’sthoughts – this time, my own- are rampant. Whatis going on? Why is everyone looking at me? Is there something growing out ofmy head now? Why are we moving so slowly? Where am I going? Is this hospital amaze? This gown sure is drafty.

And so I was wheeled. Arriving to the room, I saw a machinethat looked better suited for a spaceship than a hospital room. It was about sixfeet tall, silver and had a round opening akin to a cannon. The CAT scan machine would hopefully explainwhat was the matter with me.

Handing me over to a new woman like you may pass a footballto a teammate, the nurse left the room, having completed her transport duty.The new woman was amicable enough. Maybe the morphine in my body mixed with theviscous mystery fluid, because I felt fine. I was loopy, and everything this newwoman told me was agreeable information.

“You will have to lie down here, and this will slowly moveyou into the machine.”

Fine. Just fine.

“You will hear a woman’s voice. She will ask you to holdyour breath for different time intervals.”

Holding breath seemed fun.

“The time will increase, but you should not have to hold itfor more than 30 seconds.”

I would hold it for one thousand seconds.

“Make sure you hold still when you are holding your breath.”

Still I would be.

“That liquid you drank may make you feel like you need to goto the bathroom when you are in that machine, but you won’t actually have togo.”

Weird, but okay.

“Alright, get on up there and put your head right here,” thewoman said as she motioned to an uncomfortable-looking headrest. I settled into place. The machine started tomove. Soon I heard the women’s voice; it was a lovely robotic tone.

“Hold your breath for 10 seconds,” the robot womaninstructed.

I suddenly had a tremendous urge to pee my pants. Actually,it felt more like I had already had an accident. I nervously gulped, closed myeyes, and began to hold my breath.

In Retrospect (2011)

2011-12-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

To all of my followers who are still hanging on by a thread, dangling in the hope that I will update regularly, instead of sporadically, that is not going to happen. I do hope, however, that you will keep reading and that you all had a happy holiday break with loved ones. Not all holidays are easy for everyone; they are frequently laden with grief and thoughts of family members who passed on. Cherish what you have, and live in the moment, which leads me to the main point of this post.

A year ago at this time, I made my first serious resolution, and I can happily say that, at this time, I have stuck to my resolution. A year ago, I made a promise to myself that I would attempt to be present as often as possible; I would catch unnecessary thoughts as they sprout and take root in my brain and squash them. For the most part, I have been successful.

When you fill your head with thought, you lose the present moment, the most important thing that you have. Is it actually necessary to worry about that work assignment while you are driving in your car? What good will actually come of doing that? It will only distract you, possibly cause you to get an accident, and will not be productive thought. There is a time for thought, time which should be set aside accordingly.

From time to time, I've read books about Buddhist thought, about folks who are overjoyed to be performing mundane tasks, such as driving to work. They see the green leaf or the blue water and are imbued with warmth and happiness. I'll be the first to admit that I choked on my own laughter when I first read ideas like those. It sounded new-age, touchy feels and not for me.

Until I tried it.

I can veritably say that I feel emotionally and mentally stronger as a result. Do you worry about the future? I used to. A lot. Do you worry about the near future? I worried about that quite a bit. But the future is the future, and the past is the past; there is NOTHING we can do to change them.

Yes, I know. You probably heard this from some kind of motivational speaker when you were in high school. You probably gave a little chortle, wondered about the possibility of chicken nuggets for school lunch, and muted the rest of the speech out.

So, you have a work assignment due soon. Can you finish it now? No? Then don't worry about it. Do you have to prepare your house for a social gathering? If there is nothing you can do to impact that situation, don't let it cause you emotional distress. Do you worry about events down the road that may or may not happen? Hey, you may very well be late to an event, or lose your keys, or forget to buy groceries down the road. It's silly to worry about that, right? Just because an event in any closer in time does not mean you should worry about it more.

I'm not perfect. I still worry about the future, and I still fret about the past. I am, however, getting better at being present, and I think that is worth the effort. I'm more attentive to things that truly matter.

I started to see the sun shining through the trees more and not the work responsibilities raining into my mind. It made me happier. It is the only serious resolution I have ever made. I kept it this year, and I intend to keep it in 2012.

Give it a shot. It it doesn't work for you, I'd like to hear about it.

I wish everyone a safe, happy holiday and a new year filled with emotional and professional growth.

Cycle Safely,

JBrown

The Stone (Part 3)

2011-11-26T19:16:00.001-05:00

The pain crept through my back and shoulders. It felt like asunburn, yet the pain was also internal, the heat emanating outwards andcreating an odd, painful burning sensation in my shoulders. It pulsed slowlythrough my back into the nape of my neck. The nurse continued to stare at me, adisquieting expression painted on her face.

Concerned, I declared, “This does not feel right.” The nursecontinued to stare at me, as I entertained the thought that I was having anadverse reaction to the morphine.

Then, the pain suddenly eased and receded. Replaced by thepain was a great, calming feeling. It traveled from my back down into my armsand legs. I felt constricted by the feeling, yet subdued. I felt relaxed, buttethered. The nurse smiled. Her once concerned countenance was now a newlypainted canvas of calm. Everything seemed to be beautiful, and I was reassuredthat I was going to be ok. Whatever was wrong with me, it did not matter,because there was something wonderful going on in my body. K asked if I feltfine. I did feel fine. My body was enveloped in a cloud, and I was but a wispof cloudy goodness, majestic and pure.

Suddenly the nurse stooped down to adjust the IV in my arm. Forsome reason, as she hovered over me, I realized something. I realized shepossessed a beautiful neck. It was enchanting. I could not take my eyes off ofit. I was aware that K was probably watching me glare at this woman’s neck, andthat it must seem strange, but I did not care. This neck was the bee’s knees ofnecks; this neck was the ultimate neck. I did not know why I found this neck soincredible until I realized that it must be from the morphine. The beautiful neck lady finished up hertidings of the equipment and tubes around my body and, with a nod, left theroom by pulling the curtain and pulling it back into place.

I shifted my head to glare at K instead. “What is this look?”K inquired.

“What look?” I answered with a smile.

“You are staring at me,” she countered.

“Oh.” I said. “I don’t know.”

“Do you feel alright?” she asked with a look of amusementand a dash of concern.

“Yeah I feel fine. It still hurts a little bit.” I continuedto mutter, saying goofy phrases that I can’t recall now. K played along, likeone does with a hyperactive child. I tittered about in my state for a coupleminutes more until the nurse returned with another woman.

I soon learned that this new woman would be explaining theCAT scan process to me. I was informed that I needed to drink a particularly disgustingliquid that would allow my insides to be seen in luminescent splendor and readby the CAT scan. I was ready for the task before me. The woman had more to tellme. No, this was not just about drinking something gross; there would be sideeffects, of course. “You may feel weird at first,” she told me. “It may feel likeyou have to go to the bathroom, but you won’t really have to go,” shecontinued.

I nodded. I have the bladder the size of a chipmunk’s, so Iunderstood this bathroom language she was speaking. I was OK with that. It wasat this time that I was told I would also be required to adorn a beautifulhospital gown in preparation for my arrival in the CAT scan chambers. I did notlike the idea of this, but I acquiesced out of necessity.

K, who had transitioned from girlfriend to caretaker duringmy embarrassing medical malady day, was prepared to position me in my hospitaldress, because, really, that is what it is. I did a morphine stupor slug slideto the end of the bed, and K helped me to remove my pants. The process was easyenough, made easier by the wonderful calming effect of the morphine, and soon Iwas back on the bed, my head resting comfortably on a pillow. I was prepared totackle the disgusting drink, which would, in time I was told, light up my insideslike a Christmas tree. I would have to let the liquid settle in my body forapproximately half an hour.

I still had no idea what was the matter with me, but I didn’tgive it much thought. I had to drink this nasty liquid; that was my priority. Ilooked at the container full of liquid, took a breath, and took my first gulp.

The Stone (Part 2)

2011-11-16T21:05:00.001-05:00

“There is a speed limit. I am going as fast as I can,” Kadmonished me. I twisted my head and bit down onto the seatbelt like a ragingpit bull. We seemed to be crawling down the road. I felt like I could have runthere faster, except for the key fact that I was unable to run; this paineffectively hindered my ability to do much of anything at all. I was unable tothink clearly through the astonishing waves of pain.

When I was a child, probably 9 or 10 years old, I thought Iwas a pretty good boogie boarder during family vacations. I would walk out intoany wave of any height and battle through it. I wanted to boogie board, and nostupid wave could stop me. That was until one day when the beach where we werevacationing was struck by the tail-end of a tropical storm. Waves were supposedto increase in height. I did not heed those warnings, and a 12-foot waveslammed my frail, ragdoll, 10- year-old body into the sand and rocks. I felthelpless and stupid, much like I felt biting into the must-flavored, blackseatbelt in the car with my girlfriend.

K kept driving, and I kept biting. Eventually, she turnedleft off of the road into a parking lot; it was the emergency room parking lot.We had made it. I flopped out of the car and began to move. My body did notwant to cooperate. The pain was still pretty astoundingly bad, and I started tofeel it spread downward into the right side of my lower abdomen. Izombie-walked into the building as K helped me along.

Inside the building, the woman at the front desk looked up,saw my condition, and grew slightly concerned. I attempted to explain the stormthat was ravaging inside my body, but my condition had reverted me back to myearly childhood state. I was a mumbling little boy. “It hurts so much on theright side of my body. Especially when I move. It.. it… urrgghghhhhhgghhhh.”

K patiently explained my dilemma.

The woman quickly snapped into action and arranged for me tobe placed into a room. I’ve been in a lot of hospitals and emergency rooms.This was one of the nicer ones I had been in, and it morbidly felt like home.The floors were clean and shiny. The rooms had curtains that pulled across forprivacy. I’ve always liked sliding pieces of blue material. They make me feelsafe, even if the whole hospital can still hear my strange werewolf-like painutterances when I am behind their protective cover.

A nurse came into the room and asked me the basic questionsthat I have heard so many times before.

“When did the pain start? What are you feeling right now?Are you allergic to any medications?”

I spit out some words, nodded, and grabbed at my side.

Then came my personal favorite question. “On a scale from 1to 10, how bad is the pain?” Now, you need to know something. This was animportant moment for me; it brought with it an epiphany of sorts. This pain wasimpressively horrendous.

Should I say 10? Iwondered. Is it that bad? I don’t know ifI have ever had pain this bad before? My brain churned and sloshed aroundlike it was making butter, and out came words. I replied, “This is really bad. Probablya 9 or 9.5.” This experience and the increasing pain levels had proven to methat anything is possible, so I saved the elusive 10 on the pain scale foranother day, another embarrassing stomach issue. It was deduced that I was tobe given morphine for my pain. I was pleased, but a little nervous about theproposition.

The amiable nurse left the room and returned with a morphinekit, or whatever one needs to administer morphine to a writhing pain victim.“You may feel a little strange at first,” she told me. I nodded like a sad, sadpuppy dog.

First she needed to place an IV into my arm. She inserted itincorrectly the first time and had to remove it and put it somewhere else in myarm. This caused quite a lot of pain, probably the most painful IV experience Ihave had, but it was nowhere near my stomach pain. Remember, this was a 9.5 outof 10 on the official hospital/emergency room universal pain scale. Once the IVwas in my arm, she was able to insert fluids to keep me hydrated - next was themorphine.

Up until that point in my life, I had never had morphine. Ibecame more and more anxious. She slowly started to inject it through the tubeleading into my arm. I started to feel very strange. “It’s burning in my backand shoulders,” I complained.

“Hmm, I have never heard of that happening before,” thenurse replied.

“I feel really strange. It’s really burning in my back andshoulders. I feel really strange,” I repeated. The nursed appeared to bepuzzled and concerned.

The Stone (Part 1)

2011-11-14T23:54:00.001-05:00

I acquired a friend the other day. It was a kidney stone. Youheard correctly, I got a kidney stone. I am 24 years old, and I am alreadycontracting old man problems. It is not a pleasant feeling. I was thinking ofthe hilarity of the situation and the circumstances surrounding my pet stonetoday, so I thought I would write you all a tale. Without further ado, let’slaugh a little.

It happened in Red Lodge, Montana. I was on a nice, romanticweekend trip with my girlfriend. It was a Saturday. We were attempting to hike.Driving to the hiking destination, I noticed something was amiss. I started toget gut-wrenching pains, and my entire stomach clenched tight. Now I am nostranger to terrible stomach pains. I have a wonderful track record of gettingsick nearly every time I travel, especially when I travel abroad – so I knowpain levels. This pain was certainly in the upper echelon of painfulexperiences.

Still, I wanted to hike. Sometimes my old man stomach cannotdigest food like a normal stomach, so I figured that this must be the caseright now. A couple of steps and poof! This food would be digested, and I wouldbe galloping through the Red Lodge wilderness with my girlfriend. Not so fast,Speed Racer. With each step on the dirt path, the pain increased. This cannot be digestion issues, Ithought. This is really bad. At that point,I had begun to remark about the particular awfulness of this pain level. Mygirlfriend, K, started to become concerned.

Still, I attempted to trudge onward. Soon, the pain becameso intense that I had to bend over. Then, I crouched down on the ground. Next,I slid like a broken slinky onto a rock to rest. What did I drink earlier? Was that cider bad? What did I eat? “Urggggghhh,”I began to moan. These were not manly grunts. These were pathetic, what-kind- of-unholy-object-is-in-my-stomach-right-nowkinds of sounds. K became seriously concerned.

“Let’s turn around and go back to the cabin.” We had a cutelittle cabin. I was ruining the weekend with my seismic stomach activity. Itwas so cute, this cabin, this trip. This stomach issue was not the least bit cute. Why is this happening?, I wondered.

“Urggghghhhhhhh. Nooo. I can do it.” I stated.

“No you can’t. Let’s go back.”

“Bwaaghhhhhhhhh.” Multiple caveman sounds later, I wasturning around. This pain had a demon grip on my intestines, especially theright side of my stomach. Upon arriving back at the cabin, I stumbled onto thebed and began to contort my body in hideous ways. I was a dying seal. No, not aseal. Seals are too graceful. I was a walrus, and this was my least gracefulhour. I arched my back. I dug my head into the bedspread like a frightenedflamingo.

“Let me feel your stomach,” K said, trying to get myattention as I writhed around.

“It hurts soooooo much.” This pain was not letting up. Theimpossible was happening; it was intensifying. My pain was pretty impressive.If I had not been in that much pain, I would have appreciated how unbelievableit was, but, alas, I was a walrus flamingo character in a great deal of pain.

K prodded the right side of my stomach. “It’s swollen.”

“What? Nooo. Urghhh. Is it?” I asked and muttered at thesame time.

“Yes. You need to go to the emergency room.” She declared.

Now, owing my life to countless hospitals around the world,you would think that I would be quick to go to these life-savingestablishments. I am not. “No, I am fine.”

“You are not fine,” she replied.

“Yesssss I am.”

“No, you need to go right now.” A sharp riposte. I startedto get the point.

“Okkkk,” I exhaled. “Let’s go.” Officially making thisweekend one not of the romantic variety, my girlfriend helped me off the bed,and then assisted with tying my shoes, because the pain prevented me frombending over to do it myself.

Thinking at this point that I had appendicitis, K got meinto the car, and off we went. Actually, throughout this entire experience,another thought was prominent. Am Iconstipated? No joke, I once went to a hospital in New Orleans years ago becauseI was constipated. I didn’t drink enough water, I was out in the sun all dayvolunteering for a week, and I nearly ruptured my intestines. My intestinesmust be horribly twisted. I did not seriously think this was the case on thisparticular occasion, and we continued to drive.

Minutes earlier, I had boldly declared that I did not needto go to an emergency room. At the present time, I was biting my lip andgripping the seatbelt with white knuckles, fighting off the pain. “This speedlimit is sooooo slowwww. Hurry up!” I yelled. K was not amused. The emergencyroom was nowhere in sight.

9/11: A Short Reflection

2011-09-11T23:51:00.000-04:00

10 years ago, I was 14 years old and in 9th grade at a high school in upstate New York when the fateful events occurred in Manhattan and Washington D.C. I remember being hopelessly naive. I also remember exactly where I was when I heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. I was in the first seat of the third row from the door in Mrs. Morrow's social studies class. A boy named Andrew walked into class late and told us that a plane had hit one of the twin towers. I thought it must have been due to pilot error. I was not very concerned at that point. When I heard about the second plane, I knew something was seriously wrong.Growing up, from time to time, adults would tell me that they remembered exactly what they were doing when certain events occurred.

For my mother, it was when John F. Kennedy was shot.

The principal made an announcement during the day to announce that school would end early. I walked home and fell onto the couch, staring in disbelief at the images on the screen. Up until that point in my life, I had never given much attention to the news or current events. Sports and video games were my life; I lived in a microcosm of the real world, my own little bubble. I could not even begin to fathom why something like this would happen. As I laid down on the couch, I drifted in and out of my sleep, awakened multiple times by the horrific images and videos on the television screen.

Why? I wondered over and over. I knew no one who lost his or her life in the terrible attacks. I was not immediately affected by it. Yet, it changed me. I began to read the newspaper more. I began to stay up to date on current events. 9/11 was not a major turning point in my life, but it affected me. I began to wonder what motivated the attackers. I believe that people are inherently good, and I struggled to grasp why individuals would engage in such horrifying, destructive behavior.

10 years later, I am very different from that boy on the couch shaking his head in disbelief. I've traveled to multiple continents; I've heard the stories of countless individuals. I've met bad people, and I've seen beautiful landscapes. I've experienced success and I've been knocked to the ground with failures. But the more I travel and the more I learn, the more I realize how connected everything is.When you attack someone else, you give them a reason to attack you. When you impose your beliefs instead of seeking common ground, you anger others. 9/11 was a terrible day for the American people. Engaging in murderous acts is despicable and should not be condoned. Yet, during the process of growing up, I have learned that all individuals have days that they will tell you were their worst days. Nations have painful moments in time that brought the people of the country together. If you accept that we are all one interconnected system as I do, you realize that when you harm others, you harm yourself. Underneath all actions are strong beliefs and time-tested convictions.

Labels can make life easier. Heuristic methods help us in our busy lives, but do we always know what we are labeling? How familiar are we with the stories of those we do not understand? Life can be bad. Life can be confusing. Life can cause us immeasurable pain. The stories that emerge from these emotions are collective. It is important to never forget the terrible events like 9/11 and take the time to understand the thoughts and emotions wrapped up in them, however they make us feel.

Connecting Montanans in Rural Communities

2011-08-29T12:56:00.001-04:00

This is a guest VISTA post that I will be sending to a VISTA Leader putting out a newsletter for an AmeriCorps project in Chicago.

What on earth am I supposed to be doing? I imagine similar sentiments cross the minds of most AmeriCorps VISTAs as they begin their service terms; it certainly was the case for me. I felt like I was submerged in a heaping pile of abstractness, at least during the first month or so.

I am tasked with developing a new project for the organization Rural Employment Opportunities(REO), which is a statewide nonprofit based in Helena, Montana. What started off as a hazy vision titled the Cooperative Networks Project is now taking shape as Workers Employed Through Community Asset Networks(WECAN). The project, as succinctly as I can put it, is a concerted effort to organize low and moderate-income workers into local networks around Montana. The focus is rural areas, where resources are often scarce, but the needs are many and varied.

Rural Employment Opportunities specializes in linking individuals of modest incomes with educational and job training opportunities, primarily through two programs. Yet, the organization can only serve those who qualify for the programs and the several case managers scattered throughout the state can only ever serve a limited capacity.

This is where my work comes in. Workers Employed Through Community Asset Networks is an attempt to form local networks of workers to meet monthly and discuss issues surrounding unemployment and underemployment. Community members will meet to help each other find jobs and create jobs. Each meeting will have trainings provided by REO and partner organizations. Based on an issue-oriented tripod of “employment,” “financial literacy,” and “personal development,” this people-based network system will encourage community members to share resources and share ideas. Ultimately community members will be trained to run the WECAN networks, making the project sustainable.

When local networks do not meet face-to-face, they will be able to discuss employment issues online through a website run by REO. Complete with forums and searchable databases, the goal is to ultimately link up rural communities throughout the state into an information-sharing network and repository of knowledge. Residents of a community in the looming mountains of western Montana will be able to ask questions and share information with a tiny community in the vast, sweeping plains of eastern Montana.

This project model did not appear overnight; it developed after months and months of planning and research. Approximately seven months into my service term, I have created a project model and a fundraising plan. Integral to that effort were two surveys completed with the past participants of two of my organization’s programs. Through the surveys, I was able to identify the primary needs of low-income Montanans, in addition to receiving feedback about this new job networks project.
The conversations I had were inspiring. What I found were individuals struggling to provide for their families. A tough job landscape is only made tougher by the lack of jobs that is symptomatic of a rural community. These were not individual attempting to “game” the system and receive government benefits; these were proud, hardworking men and women. From the woman who became self-employed because that was the only job she could find to the man pursuing training to become a certified farrier – someone who makes and fits horseshoes- because that is what he has always wanted to do, the people I surveyed struggle each and every day to provide for their families.

Furthermore, what I heard in terms of feedback about the job networks project was equally inspiring. The respondents, for the most part, were ecstatic about the idea. They remarked that they often want to make a difference in their communities, but they do not know how. They remarked that they were intrigued that there were other individuals in their own communities who had an interest in starting a small business. This is where Workers Employed Through Community Asset Networks will be so effective. Making connections increases job networks and strengthens communities. The people are there. The social capital is there. It is now time to bring them together to create local solutions to unemployment and poverty.

During these final four and a half months of my service, I will be traveling to and from Havre, Glendive, and Hamilton, towns located all over Montana, to kick off this network project. I have big plans for this project and I am dreaming big, if only because I know that the Montanans I have encountered can dream even bigger.

Story of the Migrant Worker

2011-08-23T23:04:00.000-04:00

I recently spent ten days in Polson, Montana providing services to migrant workers. Originally I thought what I suspect most people think when they think of the words, “migrant workers” – immigrants from Mexico – but in reality, it is anyone who has to travel to find work. Much to my surprise, 400-600 families travel to Polson, MT every year to pick cherries at the numerous orchards located there. It has something to do with the favorable conditions surrounding massive Flathead Lake. Orchards grown on slants combined with the way the wind blows over the hills leads to a cherry wonderland. You can find the sweet fruit everywhere, from more traditional stands and storefronts to makeshift signs signaling that cherries are being sold out of broken-down pickup trucks, if you are feeling a little more adventurous.

Rather than get bogged down in the details of what I was doing – you know I have a romantic, dramatic side that screams for attention – I’ll take a more creative approach for this blog post. To preface it all, I was basically doing an assortment of tasks for Rural Employment Opportunities at a warehouse in Polson, a town of a couple thousand people in western Montana. Although this is not in my AmeriCorps VISTA job description, I was asked to help out in Polson because of my ability to speak Spanish.

The migrant workers would congregate at the warehouse location to collect boxes filled with food, which were provided by REO, and receive gas vouchers, if they could show a current car registration and driver’s license. It was a time for me to use Spanish with some of the workers and help them fill out food vouchers while also completing a survey. The purpose of the survey was to assess the desire for an employment training program during the cherry harvest. Most of the workers were very excited about the prospect of having an opportunity to learn new skills, hone current ones, and pursue jobs that, above all, pay more than the meager sums they make picking fruit around the country. So here we go. I would appreciate your feedback.

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It’s the story of the migrant worker. The one you don’t see. Unless you own the orchard where he works. Or give her a perfunctory glance as your cars pass. It’s the worker who may only make $500 a month, struggling to support a family of 5. That person who you legislate out of the country, but refuse to do the work he leaves behind.

The story is about the gregariousness among peers, but the embarrassment when she is asked about her highest grade completed in school. The change of the eyes when she reports that she has never gone to school. But she desires to go, and she expresses that interest in a survey. She wants to find a stable job. It’s a story that’s not often told.

It’s the worker that will ask to help out, because he can’t imagine staying idle. So he carries tables. He sets up tents. He packs food boxes. And he never complains. It’s the child that shouts out with joy at the thought of free food. It’s the woman who cracks jokes in Spanish and English. It’s the older man who, as unbelievable as it is, picks 40 boxes of cherries a day. Because that’s what it takes to get by.

It’s the one who travels from Texas to Montana because he needs money. It’s the other one who has to rush back to California for another job right after she toils in back-breaking work doing the current one.

Dispersed around the country. A hidden society. They are almost invisible, but not quite. That’s the story.

Fireworks

2011-07-06T20:09:00.000-04:00

Like a true American patriot, I up and left the country during Fourth of July weekend and went to Canada to visit Banff National Park. As luck would have it, we entered Canada on Canada Day. Not wanting to drive 9 hours into northwestern Alberta after work on Friday, I found a place to camp in rural Granum, Alberta. We turned off the main road going to Calgary - pronounced CalGARY with an emphasis on the Gary by my GPS, Sadie, and residents of Granum - and we began to roll down a country road like we were acting out a country album. In the distance we saw a beautiful sight. To the left we could see the glimmer of sporadic firework bursts. And to the right, as if answering the first firework’s call, we saw another colorful explosion in the sky. Two small towns in rural Alberta celebrating Canada Day.

The fireworks continued as we pulled into Granum and found the campsite. The sleepy town of 400 was packed for this annual event. Stepping out of the car and streching our weary limbs after the long drive, we arched our necks just in time to see the grand finale. Meandering around the area, we finally asked someone to point us in the direction of the campsite office. Like I was told on the phone by the jovial older woman with whom I spoke, there she was at the desk waiting for us when we opened the door. Other campsites in rural Alberta told me that I couldn’t come past 10 PM, but this woman was happy to have us arrive later than 11 at night. She said she would be waiting for us and that she was excited to have us stay. No reservation with a credit card. No prior admonishment for potentially arriving late. Just a, “Drive safely.” It’s always nice to feel like you are going home when you are away from home.

The next morning, the warm and accommodating woman at the front desk came to our campsite with a thermos full of coffee. It was a great start to our trip.

After two days in Banff National Park, we began the drive home to Montana. We got a late start and feared that we left too late to have a chance of seeing the fireworks in Great Falls, Montana. Crossing the border after 9 PM, we finally neared Great Falls around 11:30 PM. Several minutes before nearing the city limits, my friend Sonny, who was driving my car at the time, asked me to put on an album by The Postal Service. The first song played as we got closer and closer to Great Falls. Every once in a while, small fireworks were set off on the side of the road, in fields, near lone houses, out in the country. It was as if they were torches guiding our path.

Very soon we could see the lights of the biggest city in Montana sparkling in the distance. Then we saw our first firework. Followed by another. And another. Multicolored explosions to the left, right and straight ahead of us. Then, this song began to play.

Have you ever listened to a song and had the feeling that the song perfectly matched your mood and the images in front of you? Have you ever thought, this could be a scene from a movie? As we moved down the highway through the city, the fireworks exploded all around us. A complete circle of color painting the night sky. And as the embers rained down, it far surpassed any scene from a movie. When reality is more vibrant than anything you could ever dream, what do you do next? When something is so beautiful that it leaves you completely breathless, with perpetual shivers down your spine and a smile plastered on your face, you don’t compare your life to a movie. You just are there, silent, and you are content with that. Literally in disbelief of the picturesque scene unfolding before my eyes, I turned to my friend driving, and saw from his constant smile that he was feeling the same thing.

Moved by the sights, the sounds, the lyrics, everything at that moment in time felt right. Sometimes I think life is just a pursuit to find moments like these and learn to appreciate them.

The lyrics floated from my car speakers.

When you are out there on the road.

Fireworks literally everywhere. On all sides.

I hope this song will guide you home.

They will see us waving from such great heights.

The grand finale began in Great Falls.

But everything looks perfect from far away.

You will hear the shrillest highs

And the lowest lows with the windows down

When this is guiding you home.

And as the very last remnants of the very last firework stained the night sky and disintegrated into the darkness, the song ended as we left the city, having effectively done its part to guide us home.

Switching It Up

2011-07-05T23:27:00.000-04:00

Hey All,

I am mulling over transitioning my blog to Wordpress. Blogger's been good to me, but Wordpress appears to be better at integrating social media with blogging and has a greater variety of options for site modification. In this technological day and age of communication, integration is key. The more ways you can link a stranger to your stories, the more influential you can be. I've gotten quite a bit of traffic to my blog - over 20,000 visitors - but most of that has been from peacecorpsjournals.com and being listed as the number one most read blog of 2010. I'm ready to distance myself from that and create a blog that is chock full of interesting stories that will evoke emotions; I don't care what kind. I like the idea of a complete stranger from halfway around the world reading something on my blog and stopping to think, or smile, or cry. So, if you've stumbled onto my blog, I hope you'll keep on stumbling to my new site. And if you don't like what I write, come on over and hate me at my new site. I promise a pretty layout. I'll post the link when everything is set up. Until next time, stay present.

-JBrown

Playing Defense

2011-06-28T23:40:00.001-04:00

When I started this blog a couple years ago, I didn't think much of it. It was a way to stay in touch with friends and family during my time in Ghana, and that was that. I admit that I was a bit naive when I started to blog. I thought about what I was sending out into the mysterious internet realm, but then again, I really didn't. That was until I started to blog about my Peace Corps experience.

At the outset, everything was dandy. Just peachy. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer like any other volunteer. The comments on my blog were all favorable, and I smiled, thinking how nice all my readers were.

The culture was different. I was learning. I was growing. I most definitely was never going to quit Peace Corps. What kind of person would I be if I did that? Then I quit. I got hit by a roaring train of a situation that I couldn't mentally or physically handle. It was beyond bad. So I blogged about it. I refused to leave Peace Corps without a fight, and so I tried to fight my way through a gigantic, stinking pile of bureaucratic excrement. I was never given that site change that I sought, and I left Guatemala feeling defeated. Looking back at it now, the experience, both living in a rural Mayan community and fighting for what I believed was right with the Peace Corps administration, absolutely made me stronger. It set me on a different path. It made me more of a fighter. I accepted an absolutely horrendous situation in the Peace Corps for way too long, and I will carry that acceptance with me. I will also carry with me a hardened will to push through difficult situations.

My anger was reflected in my Peace Corps blog posts. I told my story and didn't think much of it. Then, one day, I got my first angry comment on my blog. I tried to brush it off and pretend it didn't phase me, but it hurt. Who was this anonymous poster telling me that my story wasn't true? That I never deserved to be a Peace Corps Volunteer? Then, a couple more negative comments rolled in. Emboldened by anonymity, the commenters unleashed vitriol that cut deep. I did not want to engage in a bitter battle on my blog, so I rarely replied, unless a poster made an outright lie about something that I wrote. I didn't remove the comments because I believe in freedom of speech. Actually, I deleted one comment. Someone called me a douche. I got a big laugh out of that, but really? I have to keep some kind of standard of decency on my blog.

Truth be told, I wanted to stop posting. I wanted to end my blog. Upon ruminating about that, I decided that it would be silly to give in so easily. I truly believed an injustice had been committed due to terrible Peace Corps mismanagement. Placing me in a rural community with no housing and no knowledge of the local language was irresponsible and it was a disservice to the community where I was placed. Soon I started to ruminate about the public nature of blogging. If I did not have the gumption to defend myself and stand by my word online, how could I expect to do so in public?

Being ranked the number one most read blog for the year 2010 on the main Peace Corps blogs website generated a lot of traffic to my blog. Most comments I have received have been positive and supportive, but the negative comments were bothersome at first. Some posters made good points; others seemed to take joy in being mean spirited.

I'm on a different path now that may one day may place me in the public eye, making decisions. If that ever happens, I will need to defend what I say. I intend to do so.

Think About Life

2011-06-15T21:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my last night with the kids at the domestic violence center where I volunteer in Helena. I didn’t realize it would be the last night going in to volunteer that night, and when I found out from the volunteer coordinator, I couldn’t mask my dismay. I guess I didn’t realize how quickly I had grown attached to these kids. The end, like most endings, was bittersweet. I was happy to know that the mothers of all the children would be graduating from their class at the center, but it was difficult to come to the realization that I would never see these kids again. I had formed true connections with many of them.

The volunteer coordinator, a wonderful woman who clearly takes joy in her work at the center, informed me that the center had purchased food from Jade Garden for the volunteers and the mothers. She must have noticed the quizzical expression on my face, because she then told me that this would be the last night of volunteering with the kids.

We soon walked over to the room where the food was waiting, the same room that the mothers used for their session. While waiting in line for the Chinese food, a mother came up to me and confided, “You know, my son absolutely loves you. He talks about you all the time.”

“Oh really?” I said. “Which one is your son?”

“X.” She replied. “He says that he loves hanging out with you, because he feels like he never gets to just hang out with another guy.”

“Oh, X! I love him. He’s a great kid.”

“Well, thank you for helping out.”

“It’s not a problem at all. I just try to come in here and be a good male influence for these kids.”

This was a boy who, up until that moment, I never realized I had influenced. He was quieter than the rest of the boys, and he seemed distant at times. Yet, when I returned to the room to play with the kids for one last night, it was as if he knew that I had just had a conversation with his mother. He was exuberant in his actions and would not leave my side.

Later that night, I was playing with him and another boy. We were playing with toy cars and planes, making noises as we moved the toys around. I had a spaceship, and I counted down the seconds until blast off. At the count of 1, X yelled and jumped for joy. At blast off, I grabbed onto him and whirled him around the room like a rocket. He howled with excitement at the idea that he had just miraculously turned into a rocket ship. Putting him down, he proceeded to teach me the rules of the always exciting childhood game of, “one more!” Of course, “one more” really means as many as you can possibly physically handle until your arms grow weak and your back breaks down mid-child rocket ship flight pattern maneuver. Needless to say, “one more” was more like “twenty nine” more. It has to be an innate feeling to want to fly, to be completely unconstrained, to be free. The pure joy on this boy’s face as I swung him through the air is an indelible image in my mind.

This boy’s mother, the same one I had talked to in the other room, later told me that he didn’t even feel comfortable around his male relatives. It felt good to make a strong connection with a typically scared little boy.

During my last two sessions at the center, I had been feeling pretty down about things, and I could not pinpoint a specific reason for my depression. It got me to thinking, as I often do. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, a book that has influenced me a great deal, helped me to realize the destructive nature of thinking and the importance of being present and clearing one’s mind, but it also taught me that thinking can be good, if it is what you intend to do at the moment.

Let me give you an example. If you are working on a task and you keep interrupting yourself with thoughts that get in the way of the task at hand, then that serves no useful purpose. Worrying about the past or future also serves no useful purpose, because there is nothing you can do to impact either one. However, if you engage yourself in focused thought for a certain amount of time every day – without distraction-, I think that is beneficial.

I made a conscious effort to think about what was making me unhappy and what I want out of life. It is so difficult to know what truly makes you happy. It is so easy to get lost in a sea of demands and concerns, a deluge of wishes and wants. How can you be sure that the desires are yours and not someone else’s? I think too often in life we get lost along the way instead of being lost. There is an important distinction.

Getting lost involves succumbing to life’s distractions and looking for happiness in the same place over and over again, refusing to accept the constant that is change. We retreat to our comforts; we get tied up in our addictions.

Being lost is recognizing that you have no idea where you are going but that you are going to make the most of your current situation. To paraphrase the late Mitch Hedburg, an outstanding comedian, “If you are lost in a forest and can’t find your way out, forget that. Just build a house. I used to be a lost, but hey, now I live here!” It’s that kind of mentality that can compel you to push through any setback, any roadblock that seems insurmountable.

I think it’s important to learn to listen to your inner voice and follow it. As you get older, you start to realize a pattern of the things that you like, and gravitate to, and the things that you don’t like. Pursue the things you like to do, and give it your best effort without infringing upon the natural rights of others. I’ve been reading a political book that mentions something about living a “good life.” What that means will be different for every individual. But everyone should be allowed to live the life that they want to lead and pursue it to the fullest of his or her ability. Now, one’s idea of a good life might seem strange to someone else, but it shouldn’t matter. If you are true to yourself and can respect yourself, then I think you’ve pretty much figured life out.

I’ll fully admit that I don’t know all there is to know, but I am fine with that. In fact, that is why I love hearing other people’s life stories. If you open yourself to others, you expand your worldview. Yes, there is potential to get hurt when you open yourself up, but who wants to die without any scars?

I’m reminded of something that was told to me by a couch surfer staying at my house. This particular couch surfer, a genial guy from California, told me about his life philosophy. In short, he told me that when you are little you have a view of the world, just one of many. It’s like a magnifying glass. Your view is so focused and small that you see the world zoomed, perhaps narrowed in on a piece of grass. As you get older, you begin to travel. You meet others who are not like you. And as you do, you begin to zoom out, and even though the view is from farther away, more of the world begins to come into focus. It is only through travel and varied experiences that you begin to learn to empathize.

To return to what I was saying earlier, I began to think of my past experiences. I realized that I tend to do things that others say I can’t, or shouldn’t, do. I’m emboldened by doubts. I was told that I shouldn’t apply to college outside of New York because it would be too expensive. I did it anyway and managed to get scholarships. I was told that I should be a typical finance major and get an internship with a bank over the summer. I went to Africa, got sick, and scared the life out of my parents. Yet, I loved the people there and the experience. I went to Guatemala, felt like a failure in a terrible situation, and then I came out stronger. Throughout it all, I realized that my most vivid memories come from people. People who made me laugh. People who made me angry. People who conquered incredible odds.

I learned that I am not perfect and that I still make mistakes all the time. And I learned that true friends will stick by you even after your biggest mistakes. I learned that nothing brings me greater satisfaction than working with someone to achieve something he or she previously thought was impossible. So that’s what I will do. I’ll make it a career, whatever that may mean.

I remember taking a test in high school. After I filled in my answers, it suggested which careers might be a good fit for me. I remember laughing at seemingly disparate choices on opposite ends of the career spectrum. I could be a fireman. I could be a lawyer. So helpful! In those tests, you never see a choice labeled, “Help people do stuff that is important to them.” But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it for a career. What’s important is that you have the opportunity to try. What’s important is that you have the opportunity to give it all you’ve got.

The Sandbox Princess

2011-05-15T19:17:00.000-04:00

For the last couple of weeks I have been volunteering at an organization in Helena that helps women and children who have been victims of domestic violence. I'm not sure why I made the decision to volunteer at this place. One week I had an e-mail forwarded to me about a volunteer opportunity playing with kids one night a week at a local nonprofit organization. The next week I was spending my Wednesday night with little kids and babies. I love playing with kids because they are innocent and not yet jaded. They have a skill that would serve many adults well: the ability to enjoy life via power of make believe. Yet, when kids can't be kids, when they have to deal with horrific experiences; that makes me mad as hell. So, each week I do my best to be a positive male influence in their lives and let them teach me that it's still perfectly fine to make believe, if only for a short time.

The names of all children will be changed to respect confidentiality issues. I will also refrain from describing physical appearances in detail.

One little girl has been there every week that I have volunteered, and she is my favorite. I'll call her Jenny. The first time I met her, she shuddered and hid behind one of her friends, another little girl. I assumed that the kids might react to me in that way, given the beyond frightening experiences that these children have had. However, Jenny, a normally smiling and exuberant five-year old, soon warmed up to me. On that first day, we sat together filling out a sheet about her interests and what she liked about herself. Since she still does not know how to write, she let me fill in the answers for her. I asked Jenny what she likes to do. She responded, "Dancing!" I told her that I liked to do that too.

I asked her what else she likes to do. She exclaimed, "Playing with my toys!"

I thought, I'm going to get along with Jenny just fine. She then told me about a particular stuffed animal back at her house. His name was an indecipherable hodgepodge of letters. Unlike some of the other kids at this center, Jenny typically speaks clearly, so thinking that I misheard her, I asked her to repeat the name. Still clueless, I wrote down on the sheet, something to the tune of "playing with Maorcgshunnyed." Jenny looked down at the sheet and nodded in assent. That was week one.

The next week, I returned to play with the kids, looking forward to this wonderful break in my week. Jenny was there again, and this time the weather was nice enough for us to play outside. Chipper little Jenny, right before bounding out the door, turned back toward me and screamed, "I love playing in the outsideness!" All I could do was laugh.

On that day, Jenny and I would become a team. A team joined in the mission to make as many cakes out of sand as a chipper 5 year old and a bearded 23 year old could possibly make. We got to it.

We sat down in the sandbox, me hanging my legs over the side with a plastic bucket in my hands, her flailing around in the magical world of sand. But no, it was not sand at all! It was ingredients for cake! Jenny and I looked at each other briefly and smiled. We had some major work to do. She started to grab at plastic containers and other random objects. Bubble wands, toy basketballs, rocks, dumptrucks. Anything that could be used to facilitate the cake-making process. And we all know that rocks are excellent chocolate chips. Jenny is a smart little girl.

At one point Jenny took the bubble wand and a nearby container of bubble elixir of life. She dipped the wand into the bottle and flawlessly blew a stream of bubbles into the air. She remarked, "I just made a wish, and it is going to come true."

"OK good, don't tell me," I replied. "That way it will come true for sure. Did you make a bubble wish?" I asked her.

Her eyes seemed to light up. "Yeah! I made a bubble wish!"

"Bubble wishes are the best."

"Yeah," She said.

"Yeah," I replied.

Jenny then slammed her bubble wand, a new found source of power and predictor of the future, into the unsuspecting bubble liquid container. Mustering all of her bubble-blowing strength, she blew bubbles forcefully into her hair.

"Ahhhh!" I yelled. "You got bubble wishes all over your hair!!"

"Ewwwwww." She giggled. "Bubble wishes......"

Only letting bubbles, and the mysterious powers that they have, distract us momentarily, we were back to baking cakes of sand. Shifting and placing sand in multiple containers, Jenny was a cake-making machine. We soon realized that we would need help if we were to fill our cake-making quota. We had customers to please, of course. Customers in the form of two little kids that we had placed at a child-sized plastic picnic table twenty feet away. These kids were hungry, hungry for sand cakes.

Soon we realized that we needed a waiter to serve our cakes. We had chocolate cakes and vanilla cakes, cherry cakes and orange cakes. We were the best. I enlisted the help of an overly eager little boy, who was about the same age as Jenny. He REALLY wanted to be the waiter. "MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" he primally screamed, as if every moment in his short life had been leading up to this point. In a very simply way, I guess it had. He was our man.

I asked him, "Do you know what waiters do?"

"YEAH! I take the cake over there!"

"Ok," I said. "Go ask the customers what they want." He ran over to the plastic multi-colored picnic table, a must have in any good sand cake restaurant, said hi to the little kids, and then abruptly sat down at the table with the customers and, along with them, waited to be served. I trudged over to the table and jokingly admonished him, "Do you think that is what waiters do?"

"YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he howled. I had such high hopes for this young waiter. Shrugging, I returned to the sandbox kitchen. Jenny and I decided we would serve the cakes ourselves.

Jenny told me, "We don't need a servant anyway."

"ServER, Jenny. Not servant."

"Servant."

"ServER. We say servER."

"SerrrrrrrvANT"

"Server!"

"Server," she finally decided with a cool assurance that told me she knew it all along and was just toying with me.

Jenny made the cakes. I took them over to the customers and our very confused waiter/server. To be funny, I told her, “Hey Jenny, your last cake was SO good, that you won an award!”

Her eyes sparkled, and she said, “Awards? I love awards!”

Still in a joking mood, I continued, “Ok, but do you think your next cake will be good enough to win an award?”

“Yeah! But tell them that I don’t have time to pick it up, because I am making cakes!” What a witty five-year old. I hope this cake baker runs for public office one day.

The majority of my second session at the center was spent playing with the kids in the sandbox turned kitchen. Baking cakes out of sand turned out to be the best part of my day. That was week two.

On the third week, I returned to see familiar facex, my new, small, jovial friends. Again, Jenny was there, and it brightened my day a little bit to see her smiling face. On this particular day, she was a bit anxious and shy at first, possibly because on this day there happened to be three AmeriCorps Volunteers there to help out. However, to break the ice, I asked her, “Are you ready to bake cakes again?”

She immediately smiled, and her eyes glistened. It was like the moment upon awakening, when one is still foggy and thoughts are hazy, then suddenly, piercing through the haze comes one strong, powerful image of an almost forgotten dream. “Yeah…,” she dreamily replied.

Again we went to play in the outsideness, and very quickly we found ourselves in the sandbox kitchen again. This time there were more kids with us in the sandbox. I felt like a teacher or a conductor, orchestrating my gaggle of little friends, but in reality, I was just a bigger version of a kid. I think I can relate well to little kids, because I can really bring myself to their level. Kids can tell when an adult is not interested in playing. They can tell when adults aren’t truly having fun. Perhaps it is strange that I can still think like a child, but I equate that frame of mind to gripping onto a sense of humor and sense of wonder that I hope to never lose.

Something changed on this day with our kitchen. It ceased to be just a sandbox kitchen; it became a castle. A kitchen run by royalty. A highly unlikely situation. Yet, the beauty of it all was in the fact that, to us, on that sunny Wednesday afternoon, this made all the sense in the world.

I found the trusty bubble wand and dubbed Jenny the princess of the castle and another young boy the prince of the castle. This was the same boy who comically failed in his attempt to be a waiter, but he was back, and he was ready to redeem himself. As a prince, he could do no wrong. Little did I know, I was part of this royal family, the king of the sandbox. I would discover this later.

Now that we had progressed from tiny sandbox kitchen to a place of royal splendor with apparently an increased budget for transportation expenses, talk moved from serving cakes to transporting them. Our prince had one place in mind. He wanted to travel to another castle to deliver the cakes and surely we needed a vehicle to deliver these cakes to distant lands. Luckily, we had a toy dump truck buried in the sand a couple feet from us.
“Here it is!” I announced. “We can use this to deliver the cakes.”

“I will drive it,” the Prince stated.

“Ok. Where are you going?” I asked him.

“To Rapunzel’s castle.”

“Ooooo, well be careful. And be home for dinner.”

“I will,” he told me.

In a few minutes time the prince was back. Before entering the sandbox he informed us, “I ran out of gas! I ran out of gas!” Jenny quickly ran over and dumped sand into the back of the dump truck. I guess cake ingredients have dual purposes.

Again, wanting to be a joker, I said, “Wait. How much did you pay for a gallon of gas last time?”

“60 dollars,” Jenny replied.

“60 dollars?!” I exclaimed. “That is way too much! You have to get a better deal next time.”
“Ok,” Prince said. And then he turned and left, off on another trip.

Soon he had returned once more, and he had an announcement to make. I thought it would be about cakes, but Prince had other issues on his mind. “Rapunzel kissed me!” he shouted.

“Alright! And here I thought you were working!” I joshed. Turning to Jenny, I asked how much she paid for a gallon of gas this time.

“Sixty dollars,” she said very matter-of-factly. I just shook my head.

To take a break from the royal cake affair, I decided to be a goalie for another boy who was kicking a soccer ball around. He repeatedly kicked the ball over a fence, which caused me to open a gate and go down a set of stairs. Learning quickly that he wasn’t interested so much in playing soccer, but playing watch Jordan go down the stairs and retrieve things, I quickly grew tired of the game.

“KIIIIN!” I heard something as I was attempting to stop the ball from flying over my head for the third time. “KIIIIIN!” It still didn’t register. “KING!!” It was Jenny, and she was yelling at me. It was at that moment that I realized that I was recognized as the king of the sandbox.

“WHAT!?” I yelled back across the yard.

“SOMEONE NEEDS TO GUARD THE CASTLE WHEN THE PRINCE IS GONE!”

“OH. RIGHT.” I excused myself from my less than exciting game of soccer and returned to the sandbox.

Jenny berated me. “King, you need to guard the castle.”

“Of course. I’m sorry about that,” I apologized.

“It’s ok,” she uttered.

Soon after I started to guard the sandbox, I had my first visitor, a young boy with brown hair. “Hey there. Who do you know at the castle?”

“I’m family!” he retorted. That was good enough for me, and I let him in.

We continued to play in the castle, making cakes and delivering them to faraway lands for an hour. Soon, the kids’ mothers were done with their session, and the children were free to go home. Walking from the yard back into the center, I thought about how happy I felt to detach myself from adult life for a couple hours.

Back inside, Jenny looked up at me with a guilty look on her face and said what may be the cutest thing any kid has ever said to me. “Hey, you know what? I’m not REALLY a princess.”

Holding back a laugh, with a smile wider than the sandbox castle, I confided, “It’s ok, I’m not REALLY a king. But it’s fun to pretend once a week.”

“Yeah it is,” she agreed.

Then suddenly, Jenny caught me completely off guard. Not one to show affection with me, she gave me a mighty bear hug and kissed me on the stomach. Then, turning, she walked to her mother’s side. Together they walked down the hall and turned right to walk out the door to leave the building, most definitely a princess going home to sleep in her castle.

Stories of Service

2011-05-05T11:24:00.001-04:00

Here's a story that I submitted for AmeriCorps Week and to the Governor's Office of Community Service. Enjoy.

The food was halfway to her mouth. The girl stood there agape with a bagel held inches from her face. She was listening, actually listening, to the story that I was telling. I almost decided not to share the story about the volunteer experience that I had tutoring a young boy named Daniel, but my friends encouraged me to do so. From the outset, I don’t think we ever intend to create the stories that we tell later on; they simply come to be. I decided to be the lead organizer for Global Youth Service Day in Helena not because it was part of my AmeriCorps VISTA Assignment Description – it wasn’t- but because taking on a challenge often brings with it poignant moments that can make a person think, or smile, or care enough about the moments to eventually wrap them into a story to share with others.

When I agreed to organize Global Youth Service Day, I made sure to remind myself that the event was not about me; it was a team effort to put on an event that would inspire youth to become more active in the community. That is why I was hesitant to speak too much during the event. I love to speak in public, but I have learned through experience that a speaker must know his audience well, and a day intended to send youth volunteers to help out at six service sites in Helena was not a day for me to spend most of the time talking. Still, I felt that my story could inspire some of the approximately thirty youth volunteers who had shown up at Women’s Park in Helena. So after several of my friends, also AmeriCorps Volunteers, encouraged me to do so, I made it a part of my speech.

I know that stories can have transformative, influential powers, and, with this in mind, I began to talk about my experience tutoring a boy in math while I was a student at the University of Delaware. I went into that volunteer experience expecting to be a teacher imparting wisdom, and I came out as a student, learning something about friendship from this boy named Daniel.

I like stories because of the way they can surprise you, the way that they can sneak up on you and evoke an emotion. I think I like community service for the same reason. When you serve others, you willingly allow yourself to become familiar with someone else’s story. When I looked out at the crowd as I was relating my volunteer experience, it warmed me to see that, instead of straying eyes and chattering kids, I saw several youth actually listening, and not only listening, but truly hearing the message that I wanted to convey.

I stressed during the planning of Global Youth Service Day that I did not want it simply be a day of service for area youth. I did not want it seem like a requirement, a box to check, an obligation to fulfill. In the end, AmeriCorps Volunteers, with the help of community members and students, came together to plan and execute a great event for the Helena community. Was the event successful? It depends on how one determines success. If numbers are to be used as an indicator of success, then perhaps it would have been nice to have more youth volunteers attend. I’d like to measure success another way with one more story.

My coworker at Rural Employment Opportunities, the organization where I serve as an AmeriCorps VISTA, attended the event with her daughter and her daughter’s friend. Both girls are not yet teenagers. Both came to the event with open minds. Both laughed and joked at a booth organized by a local service organization, their curiosity for community service increasing. Eventually the two young girls volunteered at Montana Youth Homes and enjoyed themselves throughout the day, yet it was something that my coworker told me a few days later back at the office that impressed me even more. The friend of her daughter enjoyed herself so much volunteering that she now wants to volunteer regularly with a local nonprofit organization. A young girl inspired to serve others? Now that is a resounding success and the very beginning of another beautiful story of service.

Global Youth Service Day

2011-04-27T10:50:00.000-04:00

Before the event gets too far behind me, I'd like to reflect on how Global Youth Service Day went. On April 16th approximately 30 to 40 youth area youth volunteered at six service sites around Helena doing everything from working in gardens to staining fences to sorting trash at a recycling drive. Overall, the day was a success. The youth volunteers showed up at Women's Park in the morning, ate some food provided by our sponsors, and then listened to the Mayor of Helena, Jim Smith, and the Secretary of State, Linda McCulloch, speak about the importance of youth committing themselves to community service early on.

The event ran smoothly enough without any major hitches, and I was able to successfully MC the event, introducing both the Mayor and the Secretary of State. It was fun to be up in front of the crowd, as I love public speaking. I even threw in a horrendously great joke. Here it is. I was thanking our sponsors for all of the food, drinks, and equipment that they donated, telling the crowd about the shoestring budget that we had. Instead of stopping there, I thought it would be a good idea to say, "Actually, it wasn't even a shoestring. You know that piece of plastic on the end of a shoelace? That was our budget." Hardy har har. But I got some laughs, hopefully not out of pity.

The week leading up to the event was very stressful. I did my best to make sure that all four planning committees were on the same page and that final tasks were being completed. I made some last minute calls to volunteer groups to encourage them to come out to the event and ran over to the local high school to chalk up the ground with the event info (I had permission from the prinicipal). All in all, my committee members came together and put in a lot of hard work in not much time to ensure that Global Youth Service Day in Helena was a success. I really appreciate everyone who helped out.

I only wish that more youth volunteers would have attended. However, we still did surprisingly well given the number of other events for youth going on at the same time. There is only so much that can be done to promote an event of this nature, and I think my advertising committee did an outstanding job with time frame that we had. They went into area schools; they posted flyers; they got a high school to do a radio spot at a local station, among other things, and for all of that I am very grateful.

In the end, an event like Global Youth Service Day does not come down to numbers; it comes down to stories like this one. My coworker attended with her daughter and her daughter's friend. Both girls had a great time at Women's Park, enjoying the food and laughing with the other folks at the event. My coworker talked to me at work on the Monday after the event. She let me know that both her daughter and her daughter's friend enjoyed Global Youth Service Day. She then divulged that her daughter's friend enjoyed herself so much that she now wants to regularly volunteer at WEEL, a local organization doing great work in Helena. That is why I agreed to be the organizer for Global Youth Service Day. That 11 year old girl is just one of, hopefully, many volunteers who got inspired on the 16th to volunteer more often and make a difference in their community and beyond.

Lessons From Grandma

2011-04-03T18:11:00.000-04:00

Most people think of April 1st as April Fool's Day, a day with happy, mischievous connotations, but the day for me is a somber one. My grandma passed away on that day three years ago, and it, for a time, tore my world apart. It was my first experience with the death of someone close to me. One of my grandparents had passed away when I was too young to remember him well or understand the gravity of the situation, but three years ago was different.

I remember when my dad called to tell me the news, because my mom was too shaken up to do it herself, my grandma being her mother. Have you ever received sudden, horrible news? For me, it's as if someone turns down the volume in the world, and everything becomes distorted. Maybe it's a way for your body to cope with a drastic change in reality.

This past Friday, I reflected on the past three years and my location on each April 1st. When I got the terrible news about my grandma, I was on an alternative spring break trip in New Orleans with some of my close friends from Delaware. Last year, I had just arrived at my Peace Corps site in Guatemala, the start of a traumatic four months. Now I am in Montana, and I am very content with my current position in life. This is all proof that the only constant in the world is that things change, and you simply need to strive to make the best of your situation. If you try to predict where you will be in a year, or two, or three, you will always be unhappy, because you cannot predict anything.

Today I saw a billboard outside of a church in Helena. It read, "Do you know where you are going?" I thought about it for a while. Isn't that the best part about life? If I always knew where I was going, I would dread the bad moments and impatiently await the good moments. I would lose sight of the present, something that, I realize, my grandma would not want me to do.

She was an incredibly selfless person and had an innate ability to make people happy. I remember her taking the time to show me and my cousins how to fish by the pond behind her house with a rolled up piece of bread as bait. I remember her taking me to swim at a pool near here summer condo in Florida and watching me and my sister swim for hours. I remember her playing shuffleboard with us in that same Florida community. I remember her, out of the blue, taking me to hit golf balls at a driving range because it seemed like a fun way to spend the day. I remember her making us feel that whatever we were doing is exactly what she wanted to do. And I remember, as I looked out from behind the podium before giving a eulogy at her funeral, that she made hundreds of others feel the same exact way. Their pensive faces, crossed with sorrow due to her passing, but laden with pleasant memories, is what she left behind. The fact that family and friends still talk about her and think about her constantly is a testament to who she was, and what people's memory of her continues to be. She is an example of how to live your life.

Where am I going? I don't know. No one can know. But if I leave behind even half of the love that she left behind, I will have gotten to where I needed to go in the end.

Work Update

2011-03-27T23:22:00.005-04:00

I will not let my blog fall by the wayside. I will not let my blog fall by the wayside. This needs to my mantra. I know that all of you are gripping your keyboards with white knuckles, so let me help you out.

Work at Rural Employment Opportunities has been good, if slow at times. I finalized a survey to be used to interview past REO program participants. The information about low-income worker needs will be used to formulate the Cooperative Networks Program model. I have been waiting to receive a list of all of the past participants from our database guy in order to start making the phone calls. The results from this survey are crucial to the development of my project, so I cannot start with program promotion in small communities until I have actually defined the program. Makes sense.

Still, I have kept myself busy with research and meetings. I recently went to Bozeman to meet with someone at Horizons Montana, which is a nonprofit run through the Montana State University - Extension program that deals with poverty issues in small communities (less than 5,000 residents). The meeting was successful, and the woman I met with gave me contact information for extension agents in several communities, individuals who will be essential to speak with prior to engaging community members in those rural areas. While in Bozeman I also attended a workshop provided by HOPA Mountain, a nonprofit doing great work in Montana.

In addition to working on my job networks project, I developed a social media guide for REO staff members. REO does not currently use social media to reach out to potential program participants. To gauge interest, I discussed the idea with my supervisor and some other co-workers, who all felt that social media has great potential for the organization. Therefore, I typed up social media background information and guidelines to convince staff members of the efficacy of such an approach. I will be giving a presentation about the issue at the next meeting with all REO staff members, who will be coming from all over the state to our Helena office in April. I am going to stress the importance of a streamlined, professional approach when it comes to social media usage.

Loving to stay busy, I also agreed to organize the Global Youth Service Day event in Helena this year. Global Youth Service Day will be on April 16th this year, and it is a way to encourage youth to get involved with community service, not just for one day, but in the future and on. There will be six service sites around Helena, where middle school and high school students will visit to volunteer for two hours. In the morning there will likely be a speech from a local politician, with food provided for all the attendees. In the afternoon there will be entertainment, in addition to other community service-related guest speakers. There has not been much time to plan it, but I am happy with the progress of all of my committees, and I am excited to see how this event pans out! I'll put out another work update soon. Thanks for reading.

Stopping for Pedestrians

2011-03-15T23:29:00.003-04:00

I've made an observation since moving to Helena. You heard me. Just one observation, and it is this: Drivers go out of there way to stop for pedestrians. You don't have to be at a crosswalk. You don't have to look like you are about to cross the street. You don't have to do much of anything, and the vast majority of drivers will simply stop wherever you are and encourage you to cross the street. Is this a Montana thing? Is this a western thing? Is it simply the sign of nice folk?

It is nice to know that there is a place in the US where the pedestrians still have the right of way. The way that Helena drivers halt on a dime for pedestrians, you would think that they had just seen a unicorn and stopped to patiently see if the unicorn would perchance cross in front of the car, simultaneously sprinkling lucky pixie dust all the while for the fortunate driver to roll over.

So, this behavior sounds great, right? Why would any pedestrian have any qualms with a driver stopping for him or her? I'll give you one reason. One day, I was waiting to cross the street, and, mind you, I was not standing next to a stop sign. There was a parked car to my left, partially blocking me from the line of vision of potential drivers coming down a hill. Well, a truck come rolling down the hill. The man driving the truck passes the parked car and sees that I am standing on the corner and instantaneously slams on the brakes to let me cross. The drivers in two other cars right behind him are shocked to see their moving landscape become a still life and do the same thing, very nearly causing a three car crash.

I lift my arms up and shrug, my body language saying to this man, "Really?"

He nods his assent as if to tell me, "Really, young man. Really. Go on across now, fellow. I almost caused a blazing fireball of a crash, but I know you have the right of way. A hearty welcome to Montana." So I shrugged, smiled sheepishly, and I walked.

How do you write?

2011-03-07T00:01:00.006-05:00

I like to write, and I got to talking the other day on a hike near Mount Helena with one of my roommates about my typical writing process. I want to share how I write stories, but I'd also like to get input from all of the writers out there on how all of you write. My story ideas usually stem from a thought of a good ending or beginning for a story. It could be a powerful image or a strong emotion. If something moves me, then there is a pretty good chance that it will move others and make for a good introduction or conclusion to a tale. I realize that sounds slightly arrogant, like I am professing to be a strange overlord of emotional capital.

My opinion is that the first sentence of a story should be an attention grabber, which means that it should be surprising, edgy, beautiful, or all of the above. Now, these rules apply for short stories. I figure if someone sits down to read an author's novel, he has already made an initial investment in the adventure he is about to embark on with the book that he holds, at least for the first couple pages. But for short stories, the first sentence or two is a crucial moment. You want to grab the reader by the jugular and say, "Hey, this sentence is freaking tantalizing, and you aren't going anywhere." It's always better to start a story with a line like, "Thomas had finally broken one shoelace too many" than "Thomas always wore red shoes." It's better to side with, "The rock careened off Jill's head" than "In Vermont there are many types of rocks." You dig?

When I have decided on an idea for a story beginning or ending, I then decide to simply write and see where the creative process takes me. The story is fleshed out and unfolds before my eyes. That way, the story develops naturally. For me, when a story is overly planned, it comes across as fake, as too rehearsed. Of course, with longer stories and essays, I make an outline beforehand. On the other hand, with short stories, the writing is fluid, and the story almost writes itself.

I leave you with some questions. How do you write? Where do you get your inspiration? What kind of stories do you like to write? Why am I so witty?

Take care now.

Working in an office

2011-02-21T23:21:00.003-05:00

I'm not the biggest fan of working in an office all day long, but if I can contribute to a good cause, then I'll do it. I have been in my Americorps VISTA job for about a month, and most of my time up until now has been spent in an office setting. In the future, I will get to travel to rural areas -pretty much everywhere in Montana- forming job networks for low-income workers and their families. Since I asked to be added to an Americorps blog site, let me actually take some time break down what I have been doing so far with Americorps.

Typically, I enter the office, and then I drink some coffee. I am now officially addicted, thus completing my rite of passage in the working world. Then, I get cracking. I've been writing a survey for past participants of the two programs that Rural Employment Opportunities(REO) runs. The idea is to gather information from people that REO has helped in order to more closely identify the needs of low-income workers all over the state. I will first be interviewing by phone participants from a program called Rural Montana Saves and then participants from a program called the National Farmworkers Job Program.

In addition, I have been developing a fundraising plan for the project that I am working on, which is called the Cooperative Networks Project. My supervisor and I have discussed possibly making the name a bit more eponymous, perhaps calling it Job Networks Program or Job Club. I think that, however, it may need more flair and pizazz. Something like Jobs...FOUND! or Economy Security Defenders. I'll keep thinking about it. Writing a fundraising plan required me to do a lot of research on the subject, and I checked out 4 books from the library.

Furthermore, and in a more general sense, I have been developing a plan for the project as a whole. Since I am the first VISTA at this site, I think my project will be defined as time goes on. It's kind of like I am bringing a little baby into the world, except not really at all. I've got 11 pages of goodness in my project plan, and I'm only getting started.

Once I completed a first draft of the survey, I scheduled a meeting with MCUCD, a nonprofit that deals with credit union services in Montana and is a close partner of REO, to finalize the document. It was important to get their feedback and find out if they had any questions that they wanted me to ask the past participants. MCUCD is a crucial part of the Rural Montana Saves program, it being a matched savings program for low-income workers. I also used the meeting as a way to start to personally build a partnership with people who could help me with my project in the future. Of course, all partnerships should be mutually beneficial. Remember those buzzwords, children.

After the survey is completed, I will head out into communities to run worker focus groups. To target, I will most likely heed the advice of a someone I spoke with at the Serve Montana Symposium that I attended recently. He is the executive director of Tulane's Center for Public Service, and was the keynote speaker at the symposium. He slapped some sense into me with his words and told me that poor people are probably not going to want to sit down and talk about the issues that are facing them, especially since it would take time away from looking for a job. Therefore, he told me, I should go to local job workforce centers first and inquire about community member needs. From there, I could get beneficial information and access to community members. Moreover, he stressed how important it is to provide added value during every meeting, such as a job skills training.

I'll post more later, but I wanted to inform all of you that I feel like I am learning a variety of different skills, which is a great benefit of working in a small organization, as a follower of my blog commented on a recent post. I am happy about this job and what I am doing at the present moment. If you can be happy all the time, what does it matter where you end up? So, if you were to ask me where I am going, I would reply, "I am on the way."

And you would say, "You smart ass."

What do you want?

2011-02-15T20:47:00.003-05:00

I passed the 17,000 view mark on my blog, and I find it hard to believe that so many people still read my blog each month.

My question to you is this: Would you prefer to hear more about my AmeriCorps VISTA job and community development, short stories that I write, or things that happen to me that I find interesting? Like I've said before, writing is therapeutic for me, so from time to time I write a short story based on whatever is on my mind. I have yet to post fiction on here, but I am thinking about posting a short little ditty that I wrote out in twenty minutes the other day. It's kind of a strange little story, but I'm a strange dude. Let me know. Much love.

You won't find me there.

2011-02-08T00:00:00.003-05:00

You may remember that I took the Foreign Service Exam a while ago. That was in October. I passed that and sent in my essays along with listing individuals who could verify my experiences described in the essays, if needed. Then it was up to the Qualifications Evaluations Panel of the State Department to determine my fate and invite me to the Oral Assessment or not. They didn't invite me, and there is no way for me to find out why. I wasn't overly disappointed, because I had only applied on a whim. It was just another option. I was only a bit miffed, because I had no idea what I did wrong, and with the QEP being opaque as it is, there is no way to find out. I quickly moved on, but I feel like I owe it to the Foreign Service related followers who commented on my blog to update them on my progress.

My friend Adam gave me a call the other day, and I really respect him for what he said. Skipping the greetings he jumped right into his advice for me. "I know you may not want to hear this, but I am going to give you some business advice. I feel like you have tried so hard to do great things through the government, first through the Peace Corps and then through the State Department, and both times they have let you down. They didn't even give you a chance to be successful. You can still do great things through business or something else. You should try something else." He continued to tell me that he knows that I want to pursue noble causes, but that I could enact change through the private sector or other outlets.

It's true. I know he's right. But I can't pry myself away from wanting to go directly where the need is, to taking a different path. Am I a masochist? Why do I go after the jobs that don't pay money, the jobs that tend to depress? I may be naive, but I feel that the jobs and experiences that open one's eyes to sadness, misery, trials and tribulations evoke greater emotions. I have a method that I sometimes use when judging the importance of an event or action, and it's silly, I'll admit. If something gives me goosebumps, I make a mental note. It could be a child playing, or a woman crying, or a beautiful song, or a scene from a movie. Chances are, if it gives me goosebumps, it's a poignant moment.

Going back to my friend's comments, I know he is going to make big changes in the business world, but I sense that it's not my path, even though I majored in finance.

There is one comment that an uncle once told me that has left an indelible mark on my brain. Over a year ago, before I left for the Peace Corps, I told him that I might pursue a career with the State Department afterwards. He gave me a look that almost looked like disappointment. "You know, I don't know if it's possible to make much change within an organization like that. If you think about it, most changes come from the fringe."

From the fringe. The fringe. It has stuck with me. I get goosebumps thinking about it.

Finding the Path

2011-02-04T19:24:00.004-05:00

I am learning that nothing can be predicted and that life can change in mysterious ways. This may sound strange, but Montana is turning out to be a sort of spiritual awakening for me. I used to think that there were many different paths that I could take, some better than others. Now, I am beginning to understand that all paths are part of one giant one. I'll use an analogy. Imagine that your life is a drainage pipe. You may think that each turn in the pipe you are heading in a different direction, but all the while you remain in the same pipe until you reach a fetid pool of slop at the end. I don't know how to make that part of the analogy work, so I guess I will say that one day we all die, and that is kind of crappy. Now, it may seem like I am taking a fatalistic approach, and that I no longer believe in free will. I do believe in it, but only to a certain extent. Because everything is interrelated, there is only so much in life that one has control over, but one can become proverbial pipe Drano by working hard and keeping an open mind. The hard part is finding out what makes you truly happy and doing that to the fullest extent. Enjoy the ride as you slide down the pipe.

Right now, I am happy and loving Montana. I'm surrounded by good people and beautiful scenery. The Americorps VISTA job is going well so far. I am working with Rural Employment Opportunities in Helena. Montana has a pretty well-developed Americorps program, and there are sites with Americorps Volunteers all over the state. After completing week two, the job seems challenging, yet incredibly exciting. Before I got here, I knew my role would be to set up networks of low-income workers all over the state, yet it seemed a bit esoteric. Now, I have a better idea of what I will be doing. I'll be setting up job networks, essentially, of low-income individuals within communities and, eventually, across communities all around the state. A shockingly large number of people live in poverty in Montana, and many workers do not earn a living wage. Especially in rural communities, it is difficult to find good jobs.

That is where I come in. Rural Employment Opportunities, or REO, has several programs for those who find themselves mired in poverty. I'll expand on those programs in another post. I will be helping to build capacity and expand REO's reach by utilizing the social capital that already exists in rural areas to link people together. This linkage will enable people to more easily find jobs and start microenterprise operations. I am absolutely thrilled to be doing this. I get to travel all over the state, meet people, hear their stories, and work with them to help them improve their economic security. Many, many Montanans live paycheck to paycheck, and I want to do my part to end that. I'll also help to provide leadership development for community leaders. I intend to partner with area nonprofits and universities to tap into the resources that are already available.

I'm excited about where this work will take me, but for now I am off to do some winter camping and fishing. Along the same manly vein, I have decided to grow out my beard for Februhairy. Lots of guys rock the facial hair here, because it makes sense to do so. Montana's state motto should be: FACIAL HAIR: stylish and practical!

Adios, amigos.

New Home, New Design

2011-01-30T15:14:00.002-05:00

I just changed the design of my blog. I hope you like sleek and sexy. Alright, I don't feel like doing a big update, but I wanted to update nonetheless. I like my Americorps VISTA job with Rural Employment Opportunities. I like Montana. I like the people out here. There are good people to be found everywhere. I think I could be happy anywhere, provided that I have my very basic needs met.

I'll leave you with a funny story. About a week ago, all of the new Americorps VISTAs in Montana were sworn in by Montana governor Brian Schweitzer. I had a seat at the head of the table, so Governor Schweitzer spoke to us literally a foot in front of me. He's an affable guy and a great storyteller. I think the mark of a true politician is being able to tell a story, and Schweitzer does that well.

Well, Governor Schweitzer, who keeps his dog at his side wherever he goes, wanted to get to know us a little better. Turning to me, he says, "Starting with you, I want you to tell me your name, where you are from, and what kind of pet you had growing up, along with its name." I was momentarily caught off guard, because, as I later found out, I was the only one out of the thirty to never own a pet. Therefore, in an effort to be funny, I came up with this verbal diarrhea.

"Hi Governor Schweitzer, my name is Jordan Brown, I am from Rochester, NY, and I never had a pet." Not content with that, I continued. "However, I have always wanted a dog, and I would name it Chris, because I want to give a dog a human name. I've always wanted to do that."

Those were the first words that I said to the governor of Montana.

An Interesting Difference

2011-01-25T00:54:00.002-05:00

In the Peace Corps, during training, they told me that I was an expert. They trained me minimally and told me to go be an expert. Everyone will think you are an expert, so be one. You expert, you. As soon as you got off that plane, you became an expert. They told me that.

In Americorps VISTA, during training, they told me that I am not an expert. I am not supposed to take complete charge of the nonprofit to which I am assigned. I am not an expert. I am there to facilitate, to build capacity.

An interesting difference.

In the Peace Corps, in three months, you can be a farmer or a business professional.

In Americorps, in three days, you are not an expert. You are you. Be yourself. Make an impact in the community to which you are assigned.

I always thought it was a bit arrogant to say that young recent college graduate in the Peace Corps with minimal experience could teach men and women with a lifetime of experience, so when the Americorps trainer emphasized that that we were NOT experts, I smiled.

It's an interesting difference.

Some of Peace Corps training was good, some of it was bad. I think it all depends on which country you are in and the Peace Corps administration that runs the country.

What's better? Being told you are an expert without, I believe, truly earning it, or being told you are not an expert and working from there? I'm still wrapping my head around it.

Couch Surfing

2011-01-19T00:48:00.010-05:00

I am in Montana, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. Training for my Americorps VISTA job started yesterday, and I could not be more excited. Mentally in a healthy state again after my unsettling departure from Peace Corps last August, I'm ready for the new challenge and the new adventure. But this is not a post for big, bold and beautiful Montana. This is a post for how I got here and for how I want you to go places. I couchsurfed. For those of you not familiar with couch surfing, I strongly urge you to check out the website.

I was first introduced to couch surfing on a road trip from New York to Arizona with my friend Kaleigh. She was moving out West, and, recently returned from Guatemala with some extra cash from my brief Peace Corps stint, I decided to accompany her on the journey and fly back afterwards. Plus, I always wanted to drive across the United States. Now having done it twice in five months, I can't help but think about how lucky I am to have the opportunity to travel across this great country, watching the varying landscapes unfold before my eyes.

Briefly, couch surfing is a novel idea. In fact, it is more than an idea now. It is a community of people all around the world who open their homes to complete strangers, to travelers in need of a place to stay, to couch surfers. The idea of wandering around the globe learning about languages and cultures while being welcomed with open arms by trusting, caring hosts along the way is indeed a romantic one. Except, here, romanticism is actuality. Having stayed with 6 different hosts on my Arizona road trip in Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha and Albuquerque and not having a single negative experience, I decided that this would be the ideal way to travel to Montana.

I'll admit, with an initial cursory glance at the couch surfing website, I was a bit skeptical. Oh, how did my opinion change after encountering such unbelievable kindness from strangers turned friends. The couch surfing website allows users to review surfer profiles and references left for hosts and guests alike. There are many safety mechanisms in place to ensure that the experience is a positive one. However, that is not to say that one can rid oneself of all common sense; that is, of course, very important. For example, it is prudent to establish contact by phone with a host before traveling to his or her host. The converse is true for hosts welcoming guests into their homes.

Now for the details of my trip from New York to Montana. After staying with my aunt and uncle for one night in Ohio, I was rested to make the long haul to Omaha, Nebraska. It was somewhere in the lousy weather and the long drive that I started to get a sinking feeling. I realized that I was about to make a major change in my life. Major changes seem to happen frequently in my life. Maybe I like the disruptions, the challenges. The feeling seemed to seep into my bones. Maybe it was due to coming down from a coffee high; maybe it was from pure exhaustion; maybe I was nervous about meeting my three couchsurfing hosts in Omaha. I had not couch surfed in a while, and I was needlessly worried.

My worry vanished when I arrived at the girls' house in Omaha and called one of them. She told me that they were not home yet, but that I could go inside to work up(it was 0 degrees out). Their fourth roommate was home, but it didn't seem that they spent much time with her. That placement of trust in a complete stranger reminded me why I love couch surfing. They had only spoken to me on the phone and texted me during the previous day, yet they felt comfortable letting me enter their home without them being there. The anxious, uneasy, I'm moving 2,000 miles away from home feeling faded away.

Eventually two of the three couch surfer roommates came home, and we got to talking. We chatted a little bit, and then they invited me to go to a bar with them to meet up with the third roommates and some other friends. On the car ride over, we talked like old friends. This continued when we got to the bar. It was great being surrounded by genuinely nice people in an unfamiliar city. Good people can be found everywhere.

On top of interesting conversation, one of the girls bought me a local Omaha beer even though I insisted that I could pay. She waved off the money multiple times and told me that she realized I was a poor Americorps Volunteer moving 2,000 miles from home. Kindness like this, which is what you will find throughout the Couch Surfing community, makes one want to pay it forward, and that is precisely what I am going to do now that I am in Helena. My house is becoming a couch surfing house so that we can give travelers in need a place to stay. Kindness breeds kindness, my friends.

We had such a great time swapping stories at the bar in downtown Omaha that they wanted me to stay another night in order to go to a concert with them. I was tempted, but I realized that I needed to get to Helena with a couple days to spare before Americorps training in order to get settled into my house.

At the bar, I noticed that the girls kept talking about a band named Lady Danville. Surprised, I said, "Wow, I have never known another person that has heard of that band. They all froze and looked at each other. "What?" I asked quizzically.

They all shouted. "They were our first couch surfers!" They had never met anyone who knew of the band either. For a while, we all giddily squealed like happy piglets during mealtime in a pile of slop. Lady Danville had just finished with latest tour with Bend Folds and Dashboard Confessional decided to couch surf back to California. I think that is outstanding.

Back at their house, the girls had a bed set up for me in the basement with plenty of blankets to stay warm. Like a baby, I slept.

When I woke up I stumbled upstairs to the kitchen to pack my things and sign the house couch surfing guestbook. On the table I found a burned CD that the girls had made for me. It was 14 Lady Danville songs. I felt like I had been hit in the face by a a kindness paddle. Usually I have something to give hosts, but I had nothing this time. I felt bad that they had done so much for me and that I was not able to return the favor. They, being the wonderful ladies that they are, did not mind. Before I left I chatted with one of the girls like an old friend. Then, realizing that I probably would not see them again, I became a bit depressed. Through some kind of magical power, my couch surfing host read my mind and told me, "I don't know if my roommates told you, but we are going up to Missoula in August to stay at a family cabin. We want you to come!" Depression gone. And off I went.

The next stop on my road trip was Rapid City, South Dakota. I called my host as I got closer to the city. She sounded very friendly and eager to meet me. She gave me the address for her house, and I entered it into my GPS. Arriving at her house, I found a spot on the road to park. Quickly unloading my belongings, I waddled to her door, still on a couch surfing high from my last hosts. Once you try couch surfing, you will know what I mean.

A bubbly 50 year old hispanic woman opened the door. She immediately put me at ease and showed me around her house. She lived there by herself with her chihuahua, a frenetic little pipsqueak. The dog, not my host. I put my things down near the door and took off my coat. Soon we sat down on the couch and talked about our lives. I told her how about my experience in Guatemala and my move out to Montana for the Americorps job. She told me about her family and her job as a grant writer. She said that she would be happy to host me for two nights so that I could visit Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore.

When she realized that I would likely have to do some grant writing, she quickly offered to help me out. In addition, when I told her that I would be traveling to Billings, Montana before making it all the way to Helena, she promptly wrote down the name and phone number of a friend of hers who lives in Billings. Later that night, she called said friend to talk about me and my possible phone call. Such unbelievable kindness. Have I convinced you to couch surf yet?

The next day I set off to explore the Badlands, which, if you have never visited, are beautiful and majestic, albeit a bit eerie when you are the only one in the entire park. During the day my host called me to check in and see if I wanted to grab lunch with her and her colleagues. It was like I had family out in South Dakota. When I returned from my trip she invited me to a brewery to meet up with some other friends and an a different couch surfer that was staying with her for the night. Below is a picture of the three of us.

My temporary couch surfer roommate, an artist from Philadelphia heading to Wyoming for a month to participate in a residency program, was a great guy. He accompanied me to Mount Rushmore and even got me free coffee at Starbucks by giving me an empty Starbucks coffee bag, which I then learned you can use to get a free cup of coffee. After grabbing our coffee, I took him to a good bagel place in Rapid City that I had found the day before, and we talked for a while, again, like old friends. Couch surfing is an interesting experience.

Couch surfing is more than finding a couch to crash for a night. It is about learning and sharing. Each surfer lists on his or her profile what they can teach and what they are interested in learning. Surfers have a much greater chance of being accepted by their hosts when they make their requests interesting by basically telling them why they would have fun hosting a complete stranger. At least for me, couch surfing is about the people I meet, not about finding a comfortable couch or bed when I arrive in an unfamiliar location. It is a good idea to select your potential hosts based on your potential compatibility. That's not to say that this is a dating website, though I'm sure many a surfer have surfed a couch straight to the heart of a significant other. Who knows.

A day later I ended up in Helena, MT, tucked in between looming mountains.

That is the story of how I surfed to my new home. Create your own couch surfing story. Let me know about it. Pass on the love.

A Dream Deferred

2010-12-27T16:28:00.005-05:00

Reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, I was reminded of a poem that Zinn quotes by Langston Hughes. I find it relevant to my life right now, albeit in a different context than the race relations of Hughes' day.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I guess you could consider becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer a dream of mine. That dream to work in a development role, be it at home or abroad, was briefly deferred. Oh, how much can change in one year. At this time last year I was getting ready to move to Guatemala. Now I am preparing to move across the country to Montana. I've started to realize something over time. Dreams and goals can be deceiving. If you tell yourself that you will only be happy when a certain event happens, or a certain goal is reached, you will be let down every single time. Better to realize that everything changes, and all you can do is move with the current, be present in the moment. Ultimately, the major events in my life have occurred because of a general feeling pushing me in a certain direction.

What makes you smile? What makes you truly happy? For me, it's people. I'm not sure I like the idea of pursuing a career. I think I gravitate toward community service and development because I'm intrigued by the stories of others. I think being able to relate to others is a beautiful thing. You don't get that from staying in one place for too long.

Referring back to the poem, I got knocked off track this year. I got knocked off the rails by a roaring train that followed me off the tracks and drove me into the ground. And I stayed down for a while. Mentally, I was not in a good place after leaving the Peace Corps, but I picked myself up. You have to.

If life is a dream, I found myself in a nightmare. So, what happens when a dream is deferred? I believe, like Hughes says, that it does explode. Knock a person down, and he will only get up angrier. A lack of challenges can make one complacent. I am not saying that it is bad to work toward a goal; i just believe that nothing is ever as one imagines it will be. The moment is all that we will ever have.

2010 was a wild ride, a maelstrom. I'm eager to see what 2011 will bring. I've started to write a novel after being inspired by my seasonal job at a local warehouse. Hopefully, it will be finished in a year. To all of my followers, may the new year be a happy and healthy one. May your dreams explode.

The Chinese Man

2010-12-13T20:43:00.006-05:00

There is a Chinese man who works at the warehouse. He comes to work in the morning or early afternoon and makes boxes. No one really talks to him, and some people even call him Chinaman and mock the way he talks. That really bothered me, so I made sure to make an effort to get to know him. Whenever I passed by his box station, I would greet him by his name. He grinned and nodded back to me. Truth be told, it is quite difficult to understand him, thus why many people simply don't bother to give him the time of day, but he is making an effort to learn English. I can absolutely relate to how frustrating it is living in a place where the language is foreign. He carries an English/Chinese lesson book with him to work every day.

One day, as I strolled past him carrying a box that I needed, he asked me, "What does one second mean?"

"What was that?"

"What does one second mean?"

"I'm not sure that I know what you are trying to say," I told him.

"Like when someone say one second to me. I ask for something. They say one second."

"Ohhhh. That just means that they want you to wait for a little bit. That they want you to be patient."

He nodded, but he didn't seem to believe my answer. He pushed the issue. "Does it have other meaning?"

"No, not really," I replied. He seemed satisfied with that. I didn't want to tell him that some people are jerks and will dismiss the worth of others by saying, "one second" and ignoring their requests. So it goes.

Another day, we had a longer conversation. It is very difficult for him, but he can get his points across well enough for me to understand him. I learned that he has a 10-year old son. He remarked at how easy schoolwork is in the United States compared to China. He remarked at how little of it there is.

I decided to try a Chinese phrase that a friend had taught me. I intended to say, "I am an American." He was completely baffled. I repeated the phrase over and over.

"You say I speak. You say I speak."

"I speak?"

"Yes you say I speak. I speak to everybody."

"You speak to everybody?"

"No, you say I speak to everybody."

"That's what I'm saying? I thought I was telling you that I am an American."

"No. You say you speak to everybody." I've been told that pronunciation is extremely important with Chinese.

I tried another word, a word that I had learned from a fortune cookie. Kuting. Living room. One try and he got it right away. Immediately, he said, "You like? You like living rooms? You like living rooms?"

I shrugged. "Eh, they're alright."

That Don't Work!

2010-12-02T16:50:00.005-05:00

Another story from my new seasonal warehouse job. Names are changed to protect confidentiality.

When we are not working in the warehouse, we are in the break-room. The break-room has 8 or so round tables, kind of like a miniature high school or middle cafeteria. I bring a book to work everyday, hoping that I might be able to read a bit during break. My plans are often foiled by my newfound friends that decide to sit down at the table that I have staked out. I'll peek over the top of my book and eventually give in. Conversations at the warehouse have a tendency to be quite funny, as this one turned out to be. Like a lump of coal bursting into a gem. Just like that.

"Boxman! That's Boxman right there!" Jack bellows. "He can make 30 boxes a minute! I'm still working on getting past one a minute," Jack says facetiously. Jack is an extremely talkative and witty black man, the kind of person who would have excelled at business or sales had he gotten an education to do so.

Greg, now dubbed Boxman by Jack, blushes and smiles. If you have to make boxes all day, you might as well take pride in it and do it well. Greg, Jack, and another woman join me at the table. I put my book down, liking where this conversation may be heading.

Cocking his head toward me, Jack tells me, "Man, I just want to make a million dollars. That's it."

"Why just a million dollars? Why stop there?" I tell ask him.

Jack laughs and replies, "I gotta find a way to make the million first! I wish there was a book telling people how to win the lottery!"

"I would read that book," Greg states.

Jack goes on about playing the lottery. "I seen someone drop sixty bucks on the lottery one time at a machine."

I nod and tell Jack that I saw the same thing once, at a rest stop in Ohio.

"Eventually I will win the lottery," Jack declares. "Just a matter of time."

The chatter continues about the lottery, until I decide to politely offer information about the terrible, insurmountable odds of winning the lottery. "Now, what you need to do is write that book about winning the lottery."

"I don't know nothing about winning the lottery," Greg says.

"That's the thing," I say. "You don't need to know anything about winning the lottery. You just need to trick people into thinking that you do. A lot of business is about perception. You need to trick people into thinking that they need a certain product."

Greg breaks into a smile and says, "You should write that book and make a lot of money."

Shaking my head, I tell him, "No. We should write that book. Me and Boxman."

Greg the Boxman replies, "I don't know how to write no book."

"I'll just put your name on the cover with mine," I assure him. He smiles.

I continue on the theme, "For example, we just need a product like that pet rock. Do you remember those? That guy is a millionaire now."

A lightbulb goes off in Jack's head to such an extent that his entire head may as well be a shining bulb. "Yeah! Like Chia Pet! Except, that shit don't work!"

There's Still Time

2010-11-29T19:55:00.003-05:00

Last Monday I started a seasonal job at a nearby warehouse in order to make money before heading out to Helena, Montana in January. I pack boxes, which, to me, seems to be a subtle art form. I like it. I've never had a job like this before, and it has, thus far, been an interesting experience. The constant cursing, both by workers, and by workers to the faces of their bosses, is a different work environment than I am used to. Yet, it provides for memorable moments.

Equally memorable was a moment of a different nature. I befriended a man who appears to be in his 40s, a man whose main job appears to be making and moving boxes. He greets me everyday and took the time to introduce himself to me and memorize my name, in addition to my plans for the future. Therefore, he is my friend. From time to time we will pass each other in the warehouse and exchange a few words. He has done construction work all over the country, from Mississippi to Virginia to Pennsylvania. He likes warm weather.

One day, heading to the break-room, he asked me about my future plans. I told him that I was leaving in January to start a job with Americorps in Montana. He told me that he doesn't really want to be doing this sort of job; he just needs the money. I told him that I understood. He sort of grimaced and looked sad, so I asked him, "What is your dream then? What do you want to do?" Surprised in a way that suggested he is not asked the question often, he let out a sigh and replied, "Oh, I don't know."

Today, as I wheeled a cart past him while he was at his station making boxes, he turned to me and abruptly declared, "My dream is to be a pilot, so I can see the world."

I gave a huge smile. Beaming, I said, "There's still time. There's still time."

I Would Win Countries Over With Jokes

2010-11-22T19:02:00.003-05:00

A couple of months ago, I decided to throw my hat into the ring and attempt the dreaded Foreign Service Written Exam, the first step in a long process to become a Foreign Service Officer, or diplomat, for the United States. I’ve tossed the idea around of pursuing this path for a number of years. But now, especially after having an absolutely horrendous experience with the Peace Corps in Guatemala, I can’t help but wonder if I should stay away from government bureaucracy. Although working for the State Department would not directly put my health at risk like working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a country poorly managed by the Peace Corps administration, I am nervous nonetheless.

Still, I decided to keep my options open and take a shot at the first step in the process, the written exam. Before sitting for the exam, one is required to submit an online application, which consists of job and education history, among other things. It’s not overly time-consuming, but there are better, more enjoyable ways to spend an hour. If only the State Department required prospective diplomats to learn how to bake bread or ride a unicycle for the initial application. Those activities may not directly relate to tackling international issues, but hey, what a life skill you would have!

Before you take the exam, which consists of English expression, job knowledge, biographical information-which, in my opinion, is a tricky little devil- and an essay, you must pick your cone. A cone is not a delectable treat, but a State Department way to say career track. Here are the five cones, pulled from the State Department website.

· Consular: Consular Officers protect Americans abroad and strengthen U.S. border security.

· Economic: Economic Officers work on economic partnerships and development, support U.S. businesses abroad, and cover environmental, science, technology, and health issues.

· Management: Management Officers run our embassies and make American diplomacy work.

· Political: Political Officers analyze political events.

· Public Diplomacy: Public Diplomacy Officers explain American values and policies.

For a detailed look at the Foreign Service Exam, check out this guy’s blog; he gives an excellent overview of the taxing affair.

I studied for a couple weeks, but decided to not get too worked up over it. In the end, I passed, and the next task was to submit my responses to five personal narrative questions, or PNQs. The prompts ask the applicant to submit responses that address particular areas of interest for whoever reads my application. For example, one prompt deals with intellectual abilities and another one deals with management capabilities. I enjoy writing, so this didn’t bother me too much, but, again, I’d prefer to learn how to bake bread. I think there’s a saying, teach a man how to bake bread, he feeds his family forever. Make a man write lots of essays, man hits head with brick. I submitted my essays a couple weeks ago, and now I wait. A panel is going to review my total application and decide if I have what it takes to get invited to the oral exam in March. In the meantime, it is off to Montana in mid-January to help improve economic security for individuals and families all over the state with Americorps VISTA.

· August 2010 – registered for Foreign Service Exam

· October 2010 - took Foreign Service Exam

· End of October 2010 – received results(passed)

· November 2010 – Submitted PNQs

· Late January 2010 – Await results of panel

Do I have what it takes to become America’s Next Top Diplomat? Man, that show would actually be pretty boring. It would probably show a bunch of people reading.

Interest May Wane

2010-11-17T13:42:00.003-05:00

I don't plan on writing many more Peace Corps stories, so I guess it is time to take my blog off of peacecorpsjournal.org. I have some new ideas to keep the blog going, but the real question is this: will anyone care? Maintaining an internet persona is strange; it's like a little me that lives in a digital world. Maybe the real question is who is more popular? The internet me or the real me? Better get back to the real world. In the meantime, check out this video. I have been listening to this song nonstop. Despite my initial vehement criticism of this band, Adam, you are right. They have some pretty good songs.

I think I'll post songs that I enjoy once a week, because I can do anything that I want. This is my blog.

Saying Goodbye

2010-11-14T19:16:00.003-05:00

They are going to hate me. I had just quit the Peace Corps, and my thoughts turned to my site and the community I was living in. I now had to go back to my site, collect my possessions, and say goodbye. What would I tell my community? What would they think of me? What do I think of myself? What on earth am I going to say?

I arrived back in my town during the early afternoon. Descending from the microbus, some children recognized me and immediately started yelling the customary greeting: “Qawa Jordan!” Don Jordan. I could never say much to the kids in my town, because I never knew much Q’eqchi. I said what I could, and I got them to like me. The nice thing about kids is that it doesn’t take much for them to like a person. I’ve always thought children are better judges of people than adults. Children always know when you are being true to yourself.

I was nervous, so I smiled, nodded, and tossed back some phrases in Q’eqchi. What am I going to say? Why is this happening? I thought I would be a good Volunteer. I thought I would stay the full 2 years.

I approached my host family’s house. Martin, who was my host brother and also one of my counterparts, was standing outside with Don Santiago, my host father. They were really excited to see me, since I had been away from site for several weeks attending mandatory trainings. Their happiness was going to make it harder for me to tell them the truth. I hate letting people down.

They greeted me, but I immediately started talking. “I have bad news. Bad news.”

“What happened?”

“I have to leave.”

“What? Why?”

“I have to leave. I need to explain it.”

“Come sit inside and tell us what is going on.”

They pulled me inside the first hut, the house consisting of two huts in total. The second hut was where the kitchen was located. It always bothered me that so many of them had to sleep in the kitchen. The first hut had one room. This is where I lived for my first three months in site until I couldn’t take the incessant crying of infants any longer. To make a little nook for me, my host father tacked up three boards to separate me from the 6-7 family members living on the opposite side, which is where my host father and host brother told me to sit now.

“Now,” Don Santiago, my host father, said, “Why are you leaving?”

Do I lie? Do I tell the truth? What do I do? I decided to go with the truth.

“I’m really sorry. The house is still not built. The junta directiva has said for months that it will be built, but there is never any progress. I feel like I have been living on top of you. I can’t move any of my stuff out of this house until I have a place to live. There are issues with Peace Corps too. I can’t get support from Peace Corps.” I kept talking and talking. Eventually I started to ramble. At this point, the rest of the family had crowded into the room. People were translating to Dona Paulina that I was leaving. She looked surprised and very upset. Not the angry upset, but the kind of upset when someone wrenches on the strings of your heart. The kind of upset that hurts more than the angry upset.

Stopping me, Don Santiago says, “What kind of problems with Peace Corps?”

Alternatingly looking at the floor and up into the faces of the members of my host family, I reply, “Oh, nothing that you did. There are problems with Don ---------. They should have been helping me more.”

“We lost our opportunity to have a Volunteer,” Don Santiago said. “The junta directiva should have built the house. We lost our chance. It is bad, because the junta directive has not done anything. The members will change next year, and the current junta directiva has nothing to show for their time. This is a shame.” This is not how I expected this to go.

I didn’t know what else to say, so that’s what I told them. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what to say,” I stammered. “I’m…I’m….” I looked up at them. And I began to cry. I didn’t know if I would cry saying goodbye to the people at my site. I didn’t think I had built up enough emotional capital. I didn’t think that I stayed long enough to truly care about people at my site. I thought that I had failed as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and, therefore, did not have the right to cry about leaving these people. But I couldn’t hold it back. “I’m so sorry this is happening. I never thought I would leave early. I am so sorry.”

“The junta directiva lost this opportunity. This is a shame,” Don Santiago repeated.

Peace Corps had made me an emotional wreck. I had gotten teary-eyed after my boss told me he wouldn’t give me a site change, thus ending my Peace Corps service, and here I was now, bawling. Looking back on it now, I hadn’t cried since the funerals of my grandparents.

Dona Paulina suddenly spoke up. Her words were translated for me. She wanted to know if she did something wrong to make me leave. I said no. She told me that she felt like I was a part of the family. She started to speak again, but then started to cry. She started to speak. She started to cry. It was all so sad.

I told them I needed to pack my things, because tomorrow I would be leaving. Before I did that, I decided to take a walk down the trail that leads to the caves one last time. On the way to the path, I said some more goodbyes. Eventually I came upon the start of the trail. I looked down it with tunnel vision. It was like someone had blurred my peripheral vision like a painter angrily smearing the sides of his canvas.

I walked, and I thought. It was surreal. Why was I sent here? Why did I spend months applying and waiting for an invitation only to have this happen? I was a kaleidoscope of emotions. I worked hard during training and impressed my boss. He told me that only I could succeed at this site, but now I am leaving, I thought. It all was so sad. I meandered down winding paths, under hanging tree branches and over hills. I walked all the way to the mouth of one of the caves, looked into the dark abyss, and turned around. Usually, when I had walked this path in the past, I would pass at least one or two individuals. This time, no one. Not a soul. Alone. Kind of how I felt the entire time at site. Alone because I couldn’t speak Q’eqchi, and alone because the Peace Corps didn’t give a damn.

Suddenly, I remembered a question that I had asked my Peace Corps recruiter. During my interview I asked, “I have heard of horror stories where Volunteers are placed in a site and get absolutely no help from Peace Corps.”

His response was straightforward. “That does not happen. Only Volunteers who are not proactive, who do not ask for help from the administration, fail. Those are the ones who go home.” Great, I thought. That is not me. I have nothing to worry about. And it wasn’t me. I asked for help. I tried to make the best of a situation that was hopeless. I tried for four months to improve the situation, but I got little to no support from Peace Corps.

Back from my walk on the trail near the caves, it was time to pack up all of my belongings. Like always, the younger children and older girls were in my room watching me. Mainly, they were playing with my possessions strewn across the room, asking what they could with the little Spanish that they knew. I answered in a deadpan kind of way. At one point, one of my host brothers approached me. It was a 12 year old named Efrain. He stood there and stared at me, sizing me up. “Chawil aawib sa laa tenamit.” This means take care of yourself in your town. He said it in such a strange way that I thought he was joking. He repeated the phrase, but this time he started crying and hugged me. The Q’eqchi people don’t express themselves well, and, I guess, when there is not much practice at being emotional, it is hard to convey one’s true feeling. But Efrain’s true feeling was clear. He was very, very sad. His means didn’t match his end, but his end result was sadness, and sadness is the same everywhere. Two of his younger brothers and sisters were standing behind him. They were crying as well. I gathered them all up in a group hug and simply stood there with them. Sometimes all you can do is be present.

Emotionally fatigued, I sat down in the only chair in the room to rest. There was extremely hot weather that day, and I was drenched in sweat. While I was sitting in the wooden chair contemplating the future, Martin, my host brother and counterpart, appeared in the doorway. He was glaring at me. He hadn’t said much since I got back to site, and I couldn’t read him. He was never one to express his emotions anyway. Slowly, he asked, “Jordan, are you sad?”

“Yeah. I’m sad.”

“You shouldn’t be sad.”

“Why not?” Silence. I continued, “Why shouldn’t I be sad? I’m leaving. I’m leaving early. I never wanted this to happen.” Then I saw it in his eyes. It looked like Martin was about to cry. He couldn’t talk, because words would give way to tears.

“I don’t want you to go,” he choked.

“Martin, I don’t know… I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel. Four months ago, I didn’t know any of you, and now I am sad, because I don’t know---The tears in his eyes made me lose it yet again. Tears streamed down my face---- don’t know when we will see each other again.”

Two men crying in the strangest of circumstances. Two men from two completely different worlds, uncontrollably weeping. Life has a strange way of bringing you to your poignant moments. I stood up, and I walked over to him. We hesitated, and then we embraced. For a guy who never showed his emotions, he gave me one hell of a bear hug.

That night, at dinner, Don Santiago said goodbye to me. He told me that he had to be somewhere the next morning and that he would not be able to say goodbye to me then. He had to say goodbye now. A large man by Guatemalan standards, he now seemed lost in worry, a shrunken version of himself. We exchanged heartfelt goodbyes, and I went off to prepare for bed.

That night, I struggled to sleep.

Upon waking, I rubbed my eyes to focus them. Yesterday, unfortunately, was not just a bad dream. I really did have to leave my site and fly home. I put on my glasses and trudged to eat one final breakfast with the family. I was surprised to see that Don Santiago was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for me. Like he had done so many times before, he beckoned for me to take a seat at a tiny wooden stump next to him. One of the women gave me my breakfast. One egg, scrambled. “Bantiox,” I muttered in Q’eqchi. It was never enough food, no matter how many times I tried to politely tell them that I needed more food, no matter how many times I told Peace Corps that I was not getting enough food. I could eat it in two bites, but I made it last by sprinkling it into four or five fresh tortillas.

Don Santiago looked me in the eyes, and he said, “Jordan, I wanted to say goodbye to you again.” His eyes were red, as if he had been crying and rubbing them for hours. The whole family, like usual, was in the kitchen. I looked around. Accustomed to being stared at by the members of the family during entire meals, this time they averted my gaze. It’s funny, you spend so much time with a person, and intently watch him or her. Then you realize a person is about to leave your life forever, and you can’t make eye contact; you look away. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism designed to ease the pain, the sense of loss. Maybe if you don’t look at the person who is about to leave forever, then he is already gone. Maybe convincing yourself that he is already gone makes him gone. Maybe.

I ate my breakfast with my head bowed. I felt physically weak. Intense emotional experiences can make a person physically weak. “Jordan,” Don Santiago said, breaking through the silence. “I want to give you this.” He lifted from his neck a beaded necklace that he always wore. “You are like a son to me, and I don’t want you to go.” He started to sob. Again, I found myself doing the same, along with the rest of the family.

Too weak to say anything else, I uttered, “Thank you. Thank you.” They had accepted me as one of their own, but I felt desolate and ashamed. Why do I have to leave? My breakfast was finished, and I had already said all that I could possibly say yesterday. All I could think to do was stare down at the ground.

Eventually, I looked up, to the door of the kitchen, and the sight absolutely astonished me. If my life has ever approached a movie-like state, it was at this very moment. There, standing in the doorway of the family’s kitchen were people. Lots of people. There were heads of little girls and boys poking through the doorway through the legs of older boys and men. We stared at each other for what felt like minutes. One by one, many of the men came over and shook my hand and gave me a hug. Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe it. Perhaps, nothing can ever describe it.

My bags were packed. Finals words had been spoken. It was time to go.

I waited by the side of the road in front of my host family’s house with the family and others from the town. Approximately 20 minutes later the Peace Corps van pulled up, driven by a nice older man named Pascual. He loaded my bags in the trunk, and I waved a final goodbye from the passenger seat to a place where I might never return. This was not the way that it was supposed to happen, and that’s what I told Pascual on the drive back to the Peace Corps headquarters. I told him about how unfortunate it all was that I had to leave early. He turned toward me and gave me a quizzical look. “It’s funny. The way that you left, with all of the people there and everything, I thought you had just completed your service.”

The Stories Will Continue

2010-11-08T20:56:00.003-05:00

I just realized that I have not updated this blog in over a month, and I vow that I will not let this blog fall by the wayside. I think that I have done a pretty good job keeping it updated over the years, and even though I left the Peace Corps, I know there will be more stories to tell in the future. I ran into a lot of friends at UD Homecoming that I had not spoken to in a while, and many of them told me how much they love my writing. Writing for me is therapeutic. Some of you told me that my stories move you, and that us one of my intentions. I think there is as much to be said for the way a sentence sounds when you read it and for the emotion that it brings out as for the content it holds. Thus, I will continue to put out stories that people can stumble upon and smile. Or yell. Or cry. Stories that will become trapped in the internet world and embarrass me when I am old.

Bringing you up to the present, I recently accepted a new job with Americorps VISTA in Montana. As bad as my experience with Peace Corps was, service will always be important to me, and maybe this is a way for me to complete a second year of service that I never had. Or maybe I just have masochistic tendencies. I just know that the idea of going to a place where no one goes is exciting. I'll get to work all over the state with low-income individuals improving their economic security. I'll even get to speak Spanish with migrant workers. It sounds like a great opportunity, and I feel lucky to have stumbled upon it. I'm just going to keep doing things that make me happy until something sticks. Plus I have a pretty cool beard and some flannel shirts, so going to Montana seemed to be a natural progression.

Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Ending)

2010-10-03T14:06:00.009-04:00

On the way back to my site, I mulled over what had happened. I thought that Peace Corps would have been more willing to give me a site change. I could not believe that I was about to quit the Peace Corps. Distraught and emotionally drained, I thought about what I would say to the people at my site when I got back. I had been gone for a couple of weeks, since I had been at mandatory training events several hours away. I couldn't believe that I was placed in this position, and I felt like the bad guy, a whiny Peace Corps Volunteer giving up on his community. Then my phone rang.

It was the Peace Corps country director's secretary. She told me that the Peace Corps administration wanted to have a meeting with me and that I needed to turn around and come back to the headquarters before reaching my site. About halfway to my site, and not able to make the journey back to headquarters before nightfall, I stayed the night at a hostel with a fellow Volunteer and prepared to make the journey back the next day.

My mind was racing. Did this mean that they changed their mind and wanted to give me a site change. Were they angry? At this point, my friends in Peace Corps had started flooding the inboxes of Peace Corps staff, irate over the fact that I was not being offered a site change. They spoke about my work ethic and leadership qualities. I was amazed at how much support I received from other Volunteers.

I was called again the next day on the way to the meeting, again by the country director's secretary. She told me not to worry, that the country director, the security officer, my training director, my boss, and a Peace Corps medical officer would be there and that they all wanted to help me. My heart seemed to leap up through my throat; maybe I would be staying in Guatemala after all! Still, a meeting of this nature was unprecedented; I had never heard of it happening before, and I still had my doubts. However, I reasoned with myself, why would so many staff members show up to a meeting to kick me out or yell at me? I finally decided that this meeting was a good thing and that it would have a good outcome.

I entered Peace Corps headquarters and was told by my training director to wait until they were ready for me. My heart beating rapidly, I decided to wait in the computer room. Eventually they were ready for me. As I approached the door to the meeting room, my palms started to sweat. My heart raced. Entering, the room setting was ominous. All of the staff members were seated around a long wooden table. The country director beckoned for me to sit next to her near the head of the table. I felt like I was on trial.

She spoke first. "Jordan, we have been getting a lot of e-mails from other Volunteers telling us about your story. But we don't want to hear from them; we want to hear from you. Could you tell us what's going on, in your own words?'

I felt like I was losing my mind. I had been telling them my story for the last several months. Still, I maintained my composure and told them my entire story, feeling very uncomfortable as my boss' intense stare burned red-hot on my skin. I felt bad criticizing him at all, him being my boss, but I knew that I was right. I was not going to be intimidated, since this was likely my last chance to stay in Guatemala.

Finishing my long story, I said, "And for those reasons, I believe that I deserve a site change. I really want to be here, and I believe that my site is not ready for a Volunteer."

The country director thought about what I said for a second, and asked me, "What can we do to make you stay in your site?"

"I just don't think I can do it anymore in my site. I mentally and physically can't do it," I explained.

"How can we get you to stay in your site?" she retorted. They kept at it. They kept telling me to stay in my site and how great of a Volunteer I was. They wore me down. I told them that I could not go back to my site until a house was built for me, which meant everything that was originally promised: a house with electricity and access to water for cleaning dishes. The country director told me that she would send my boss to my site to verify that everything had been built. In the meantime, I would stay at headquarters taking classes with the Peace Corps' only Q'eqchi teacher and work on development project ideas.

"Ok, you've convinced me to stay," I uttered. The words felt like a mistake as soon as I said them. I left the meeting unsettled. I did not feel at peace with my decision. I did not think the house would ever get built, and I did not think things would improve at my site. I decided to sleep on my decision to stay and stick to this new plan.

Trying to make the decision whether or not I really wanted to stay in my current site kept me up all night. I talked to a good friend of mine on the phone, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer. I was really losing it. I told him that I was losing my mind and really being affected by all of this. I said that I hated this, and I couldn't handle it anymore.

Right away he replied, "Dude, this isn't you. This is just a job. Don't let Peace Corps do this to you. If that's really how you feel, you need to leave." Always one to give me good advice, I took his words to heart.

Later that night, I was still trying to decide what to do. I called my father and wandered though town. I wandered not seeing or feeling anything, completely in a daze. Ultimately, he told me that I had to make the decision that was best for me. Another good friend of mine in the Peace Corps had said the same thing over the past few weeks. He told me to completely forget about letting down my boss, my community, my parents or my friends and to take a deep breath and be present in the moment. Then, the decision should come to me, he said.

Later still, I felt so bad about possibly leaving my community that I became physically ill. I went to the bathroom and vomited several times. This type of thing had never happened to me before. I sat on my bed and wrote a pro and con list that I had started earlier that day. Pro was for the reasons I should stay. Con was for the reasons I should leave. I had the same number of pros and cons. I paused for a second. In the back of my mind, I said to myself, Darn I don't have enough cons to leave. There it was. That was how I truly felt. At that moment I decided that I was going to leave the Peace Corps, and it felt like I had lifted a huge weight off my shoulder. I laid down on my bed, and I fell asleep.

The next day, I went to see my training director, who had been a great friend to me during my time in Guatemala. He smiled when I entered his office. He thought that I had come to discuss my plan for the weeks to come. Instead, I confidently approached his desk, shook his hand and said, "I'm going to leave Guatemala."

Shocked and upset, he said, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," I replied.

"Well, go talk to the country director, and see what she says about it," he told me. I walked over to her office.

The country director, someone who always seemed to be fond of me, smiled when I knocked on her door and told me to come in. "I've decided to leave Guatemala," I said.

Surprised, she exclaimed, "Have you thought about this? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I've thought about it a lot. I'm sure," I stated. She sat me down in one of the chairs in her office and pulled another one across from me. We talked for a while, and she appeared to be upset. I noticed tears welling up in her eyes as she listened to me speak. The country directorhad made a lot of enemies with the Peace Corps Volunteers, but I felt that she meant well. She told me to go back to my site, say my goodbyes, and "end well."

Then, as I was just about to leave, she said something that astonished me. She calmly asked me, "Jordan, what if I could give you a site change? I just don't want you to leave without me having offered it. I can't promise anything or give you a timetable on when it would happen."

I will forever wonder why she never said this at the meeting the day before. This last-minute effort to give me a site change probably had political motives, a way for her to write in a final report that she had given me an "out" before I left.

Peace Corps had turned into a game, and I was not going to play it anymore. Astounded that she had just asked me that, I thought about it for a second and said, "You know what? It's going to sound really bad that I am turning down a possible site change, but I have made up my mind, and I need to leave." We said a few more words, and I walked out.

Today, the country director's words, "I cant promise anything" still ring in my ears. I have since moved on and will soon be moving to start a job doing community development work across the country, but I will always remember what happened.

Peace Corps does not need to promise much to its Volunteers. My fellow Peace Corps Volunteers are some of the most intelligent, ambitious and resourceful people I know, and they are fully capable of working with limited resources. But when a Volunteer is placed in a site with no housing, limited access to clean food and no knowledge of the local language, what does Peace Corps expect will happen?

So no, I did not complete my Peace Corps service, and I did not have the complete Peace Corps experience, but I had a Peace Corps experience. And in the future, 10, 20, or 30 years from now, when the topic of Peace Corps comes up in conversation, I can say, "Yeah I did that, and I gave it one hell of a shot."

Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Part 4)

2010-09-25T22:16:00.005-04:00

While at Peace Corps headquarters, I made an effort to get my bosses to verify with my association that a house was, in fact, being built for me. Before I left to go to the headquarters, I talked with a friend of mine, who was on the junta directiva of the association, and my main ally in communicating with the others members of the junta. He told me that they had cut the materials during the full moon and that the house would be done by the time I got back at the end of July. Since my boss, the assistant peace corps director, had gone out of town for a while, I spoke with the project specialist for my program. I asked her is she could please contact my friend on the junta directiva and inquire about the progress of the house. My hope was that she could extract a promise or definitive information about the status of the house. It took over a day for her to get a hold of him, as he was not answering his phone or returning calls.

Finally she was able to reach him. After talking to her for a while, he admitted that they did not yet have the materials and that they would have to wait for yet another full moon. Anxious to hear news about my house, I entered my project specialist's office the next day, hoping for the best. She told me that the association did not have the materials yet. This meant that I would have to wait another month for the house to be built.

I had had enough. I had hit my limit. I told her that I could not wait any longer, that not being able to control what I ate was a health risk. I needed this house not because I liked to complain, but because I was constantly ill from not being able to cook my own food. At that time I was still giving numerous stool samples because of constant diarrhea.

What bothered me the most was that my friend on the junta directiva was the one of the few people in the town I felt I could trust. Maybe he was doing everything that he could to get the house ready and his actions were stifled by the rest of the association. I will never know. I felt like he was the last person I could rely on, and when I found he had been lying to me for a long time, I couldn't deal with it anymore. Maybe he didn't mean any harm in lying to me. Maybe I shouldn't have decided enough was enough. All I know is that every person has a breaking point, and the realization that I would have to wait yet another month for the house to MAYBE be built was the final straw for me. I stormed out of the office.

I came back later that day and told my project specialist that I needed to be honest with her. I told her I could absolutely not wait any longer; I was miserable at my site, and I could not go back. I could not stand being sick any longer. I desperately tried to learn the language, make friends, stay healthy, and get enough sleep, but enough was enough. I couldn't handle anymore. I told her that I was thinking about leaving. It pained me to hear those words come out of my mouth, because I promised myself and others that I would never leave my community behind. But this is what I felt I had to do, for my own mental and physical health.

Immediately she said, "What if we moved you out West to another site?"

"I would do it," I replied. "I don't want to quit; I want to have a fair chance at being a Volunteer." She told me that she was confident a site change could be arranged. She said that she needed to talk it over with my boss, the assistant peace corps director of my program and that they would both be able to meet with me tomorrow when he came back to the office.

The next day my boss was back in his office. I entered nervously, but with renewed hope that things would get better after my assistant boss told me that there was a good chance I could get my site changed. He had me sit down in a chair close to the door, and he pulled another chair across from me and sat down. He asked me to talk about my concerns with my site. I hesitated and asked him where my project specialist was. Stutterting, he replied, "Um uhh oh.... do you want her to be here?"

"Yes, she told me she would be at this meeting today. Isn't she supposed to be here?" I asked him.

"Ummm, well we could wait I guess," he said awkwardly. I had no idea what was going on or why he suddenly seemed so uncomfortable.

"Yeah. Let's wait then, I guess," I slowly responded.

Then, he abruptly retorted, "Actually, she's packing to go out of town." I had just seen her walking in the hall outside of her office. "Let's start without her."

Surprised, I asked, "She can't come to the meeting?"

"No. Let's start." I thought that this was extremely odd that he was not letting my assistant boss into the meeting, and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I began by saying that I could not wait any longer for the house to be built. I felt that it would never be built, and I could be waiting many more months for it to be constructed. He told me that I only needed to have patience, that I needed to wait a little longer. I told him that a line needs to be drawn somewhere and that I was asking for a site change. If not given a change, I would be forced to leave. He continued to skirt the issue, not answering my plea directly. I asked him one more time for a site change.

Then, with intense anger, he yelled, "I will NOT give you a site change! That's final!"

With the realization that I would be leaving Peace Corps, my heart cracked a little. This was the end. I guess it was the finality of it all that made tears start to well up in my eye. I didn't get angry. I didn't respond. I just stared at him while a tear from each eye rolled down my cheeks. Damn you, I thought. You really have no idea how much I care about this. He continued on an angry tirade until he realized that I was actually upset. That this wasn't some big farce to get an easier site.

"Oh.. oh." He stammered. "Maybe you should see a counselor. I can see this is emotionally affecting you." He continued to tell me how great of a Volunteer I was and how it was impressive that I was learning Q'eqchi so quickly. He added, "If you don't believe in me, you don't believe in anything."

At that point, I wanted to scream, "You need to give me a reason to believe in you!" but I kept my eyes fixated on his and said, "Thank you for the opportunity."

"How can you be so inflexible?" he asked incredulously.

I could not believe that he had asked me such a delusional question. I simply stated, "Thank you for the opportunity. I'm going to go back to my site and make the final decision when I get there."

He continued to tell me what good business skills I had and that he knew I could do great things, that I was already doing great things. In a haze, I heard him, but I didn't hear him. I felt like I was floating outside of my body. He tried to convince me to say for another 20 minutes, and in my dream-like state, all I heard myself say time and again was, "Thank you for the opportunity."

Eventually I got up to leave. My boss finally looked upset. I was upset. I walked out, and I left. I was going to travel back to my site. On the trip back, however, my plans changed.

Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Part 3)

2010-09-16T16:04:00.006-04:00

Literally sick and tired of being sick and tired, my body was falling apart on me. Still at the point where I was trying to convince myself that this was normal for a Peace Corps Volunteer to be dealing with, I let one particular problem go on for too long, and it eventually manifested itself in a painful, no longer bearable issue.

During the second month in my site, I started to notice acid reflux problems. Never having a history of acid reflux, I ignored it and assumed it would go away. I attribute it mainly to the caldo, or soup, that was occasionally served to me, but it could have been caused by a number of foods. The caldo was incredibly greasy, and orange bubbles of grease could be seen floating on the surface. Most of the food I ate with the host family bothered my stomach, but this was especially bothersome.

I first noticed it when trying to sleep. Upon lying down, I would feel a sharp pain in my chest. It would occasionally make it very difficult to breathe, and I would have to sit up and try to pound my back in order to force some air through my lungs. The pain was especially noticeable when I did anything active, such as playing soccer with the boys in my town, something that I did almost every day. Acute pains in my chest would cause me to stop running and massage the afflicted area.

This continued for months, becoming progressively worse. Eventually, a particularly horrible episode made me do something about it. I was spending the night at a fellow PCVs house because I did not have enough time to make it back from the Q'eqchi classes that I took every Saturday in a city a couple hours away. Trying to sleep, the now familiar pain in my chest returned. It became so bad that I got out of bed and started to walk around and attempt to regain a normal breathing pattern. I walked out of the bedroom into the main room of the house and stumbled around in the dark. Doubled over, I kept coughing and pushing my chest and back in order to generate an air flow. The pain got to be so bad, that I momentarily considered calling the Peace Corps off-duty medical officer. This was at 2 in the morning. Eventually the pain subsided, and I was able to return to bed and fall asleep. The profundity of the pain, however, made me decide that enough was enough.

The next day I called a Peace Corps Medical Officer and described the symptoms that I had been having. She first berated me for not controlling my diet. I sort of lost it, and I admit that I was a little too harsh with this very nice medical officer. Unexpectedly, I decided to go into a long rant about everything that had been going on at my site and how I could no longer take it. I told her that I had no control over my diet. She yelled at me for eating beans, but was later perplexed after I told her that it was one of the only things served to me. She was astonished that I did not have the resources to control what I ate and offered to tell others about my situation. I told her that she could, but I didn't think any significant changes would come of it. The medical officer told me to go to a doctor to get his opinion.

I scheduled an appointment, and a couple days later I was in the office of a doctor approved by Peace Corps. He examined me and told me that I had an acid reflux problem and that I was doing damage to my already burned esophagus. He seemed very knowledgeable and prescribed three different kinds of medicine for me. I thanked him and left his office. After that I proceeded to call the Peace Corps medical office to confirm that I should purchase the prescribed medicine. They agreed that it would be a good idea and told me that I would be reimbursed for the purchase. The total for the medicine was over 100 dollars. After taking the medicine for a couple days, I started to feel better.

That was the end of June. I knew that most of the month of July would be occupied by trainings and meetings at Peace Corps headquarters 7-8 hours away, and I was looking forward to the time out of my site, if only to eat plentifully again.

The first time I was to go to the Peace Corps headquarters was for a training, where my counterparts would also participate. I was excited to show my counterparts what kind of work we could be doing in the town. The only problem was that my counterparts were so poor that they could not afford to accompany me to events, even to nearby towns where the fare was only 5 quetzales, or about 60 cents. Luckily, Peace Corps was going to reimburse all of the Volunteers' counterparts for this event, which would last several days. I told my counterparts multiple times that they would need to inform the junta directiva of the association that they would be gone for a couple days and that they needed money for transportation to Antigua. I continued to remind them as the day of the event drew nearer, and they told me that they would take care of everything.

The night before we were supposed to leave, I asked one of my counterparts if everything was arranged for us to leave the next morning for Antigua. He told me that the junta directiva did not want to front the money, even though they would later be reimbursed. This was something that had been planned for several weeks, an event that the junta directiva knew would occur. Again, I wondered how this site got a Peace Corps Volunteer, since they seemed to have no intention in wanting to participate in free professional development training. No longer wishing to mask my discontent, I marched over to the center of town with my counterpart and asked why they did not want to pay the bus fare to allow my counterparts to go to this valuable training provided by Peace Corps. Begrudgingly, they finally agreed to front the money. Over time, I learned from my counterparts and host father that many in the community strongly disliked the junta directiva and felt that they were ineffectual.

The next day we left for the training, and the training went really well. It gave me time to bond some more with my counterparts, who were very close in age to me. They did a great job in participating during the 2 days, and I was hopeful that we could implement what we learned back at the site.

Every time that I left my site I was told by someone on the junta directiva that the house would be done when I got back. Every time, the house was not finished. It all seemed very deceitful.

My counterparts left to return to the site, and I stayed for my training group's Reconnect, an event that takes place after a group has been in site for 3 months. It is a time to compare notes, successes and failures alike. I took advantage of my time in headquarters to approach my two bosses about my recurring frustrations. I was growing very impatient with not being able to have a room where I could unpack my things and start to feel a little more settled, not to mention the fact that I was still not able to control what I ate, thus perpetuating a cycle of illnesses.

Their answer was concise: things will get better when you have your house. Just wait a little longer. I didn't think I could hang in there much longer.

Reconnect came next. It was great to see everyone, but my friends' comments scared me. They told me how terrible I looked. Remember, almost everyone had not seen me in 3 months. They said I looked incredibly thin and sickly. One of my friends even told me that I looked yellow and instantly frowned whenever she saw me. I tried to maintain a brave face and tell them that I was hanging in there. Outwardly, I was positive. Inwardly, I was in a really bad place. I was losing hope of anything ever getting better. I was not enjoying my Peace Corps experience at all.

During one session of Reconnect, my ecotourism group all sat in a circle. We went around the circle and talked about the the good times and the bad times at our sites thus far. I talked about how incredibly depressing it had been in my site, but still tried to hold back a little. I did say, however, that I believed the site was never reviewed and that a Volunteer should never have been sent there. I was starting to crack.

One intention of Reconnect was from us to hear from our peers and get a morale boost from hearing the stories of triumphs and struggles. I came away feeling even more depressed. Why? Because, for the most part, the stories told of setbacks and difficulties didn't even come close to what was going on at my site. I found that I was digging myself into a mental rut; I didn't think I would ever be able to overcome the problems in my site. Reconnect was supposed to make me feel connected to my group. Instead, it had the opposite effect. I felt alone.

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For the sake of readability, I am separating my reasons for leaving Peace Corps into many parts. I am pretty sure the next installment will be the last. Once I finish up these posts, I plan to to write with more of a positive spin again. I'll talk about memorable events from the past couple of months and my plans for the future. If you are still interested in reading, then I am still interested in writing. Again, thanks for reading and for the comments, internet friends.

Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Part 2)

2010-08-23T12:53:00.011-04:00

This post continues the story of why I decided to leave the Peace Corps. Thank you for all of the comments on the last post, both good and bad. I do not hate Peace Corps or Guatemala; I simply had a particularly negative experience with how the Peace Corps administration dealt with my situation. I want my story to be one of many added to the Peace Corps discourse, so that applicants can see all sides of Peace Corps before deciding to apply. In fact, I hope you do still apply after reading this and that you finish your Peace Corps service, something that I was unfortunately not able to do.

I told my training director about my recurring illnesses and my living situation. The reason I called him was because I knew that I could speak English and clearly state my concerns. Even though I spoke Spanish very well, I feared that I was not able to effectively voice my concerns and that something kept getting lost in the translation with my superiors. My training director was happy to help and said that he would pass my concerns onto my bosses.

After taking the medicine for the giardia, I started to feel better, and I returned to the host family's house so that I could resume my week of Q'eqchi classes. Even though the Q'eqchi classes were not very good, I was convinced, even after minimal interaction with him, that the host father who had been helping me earlier would be an excellent instructor. The family told me that he would not be home during the rest of the week but that he would be happy to teach me during his free time each weekend. I was ecstatic, and I made plans to end classes with my current teacher back at my site and switch over to this new teacher.

While I was still staying at this family's house for Q'eqchi classes, I was called by my Assistant Peace Corps Director(APCD). He told me that Peace Corps could give my association money to build a house for me. This was in early May. They would give me a 2000 quetzal advance on my living allowance so that the the junta directiva of my association could buy cement for the proposed house. He said that he would send his friend, an extremely competent man from an NGO in the area to negotiate with the junta directiva in Qeqchi the details of my house. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this man; he tirelessly worked to advocate for me, in addition to the large amount of admirable work he did for the communities in the area. Apparently he even pushed the association to provide better housing before I arrived.

The house would be a simple hut with wooden boards for the walls, a cement floor, and a thatch roof. That was all that I needed. All I wanted was a place to sleep and a place to cook my food, in order to prevent myself from constantly becoming ill.

The whole process of getting this house built became a nightmare. I would attempt to meet with the junta directiva to discuss the progress, but they did not want to meet. I couldn't really explain what I thought should happen, because I couldn't speak Qeqchi. Therefore, I had to trust that my host dad would explain everything to them. I knew that the men in the town were very busy; they went almost every day to tend to their plots of land. I didn't want to come across as too imposing, but the lack of sleep and the lack of food was really taking its toll on me. I kept reminding myself that this how the people live here and that I had no right to complain, so I continued to let the housing issue fall to the wayside.

I would say as much as I could in Q'eqchi and go farm with the men, because I wanted to earn their respect, and I wanted them to like me. I was feeling really isolated and lonely not being able to communicate with the vast majority of my town. Finally, I was able to arrange a meeting with the junta directiva. They told me that the man from the non profit never stopped by to speak with them. This was a man that they knew very well. I told them that my boss had just told me that he came to the town a couple of days ago. They told me that, if he had come, they didn't know with whom he had spoken. I didn't know who to believe. During another meeting where I tried to arrange an Engineers Without Borders project and gather more information about the progress of the house, I was told by the junta directiva that I really needed to learn Q'eqchi, because they could not understand Spanish. I was beginning to feel more and more depressed.

I repeatedly called my boss to tell him that the junta directiva did not seem to know anything about the house and to tell him that they did not even seem to know that they had allegedly agreed to build it. I told him how difficult it had been to even get them to meet with me. He told me that I had to use my host father to set up meetings for me. I told him that I had tried that and that I was not having much success. I began to wonder why my association wanted a volunteer at all if they never wanted to tell me when meetings were. During my entire time in site, not once was I informed of a junta directiva meeting. Organizations agree to a checklist of items before they get a volunteer, one of which is including the volunteer at meetings and in the organization's plans. My boss told me to tell my host father about my frustrations, and I did. My boss also told me that he did not want to hear complaints, only solutions. I struggled to maintain my composure. I was not sleeping at all at this point and hardly getting any food. I felt like I didn't have anyone to turn to, and I explained that I was calling for help.

Weeks later my APCD came to my site for his first site visit. I acted confident and pretended like everything was alright in my site even though it really was not. I still did not want to appear weak or be viewed as a complainer. I listed communication issues as the first item on the agenda. I wanted him to tell my association the importance of telling me about meetings. I spoke some Q'eqchi in the beginning of the meeting to show my boss how hard I had been trying to learn the language. The meeting consisted mainly of my boss talking to the junta directiva. He went through the points on the agenda that I created. After realizing that he could not communicate with almost everyone at the meeting, he directed everything toward my host father and one of my counterparts. It was clear that those who could not speak Spanish were not paying attention; some even got up to walk around and look out the window. The APCD site visit is supposed to be a big deal, but certain members of the junta directiva could not have been less interested. I hoped that my boss would realize what kind of issues I was facing with the lack of communication in my site.

After he left, I really thought the communication issues would disappear. They did not. I still stumbled upon meetings that no one told me about. Those involved in the meetings did not want to translate. Thus, I had no idea what was going on. I wondered what I was doing in Guatemala.

Eventually, the living situation was so unbearable that I called my APCD to tell him that I could not stand one more week in the house with the sometimes 16 other individuals. I kept beating myself up, telling myself that I was a bad person for not being able to deal with the situation. I kept telling myself that this is what Peace Corps is supposed to be like, and the fact that I can't handle this living situation means that I am culturally insensitive.

My boss said that he could move me into a room in the ecohotel that the association ran. There were 6 rooms to house tourists that chose to spend the night in the community. It was a tiny room; there was barely enough space for my bed and a small table, but I least I could get some sleep. I was thankful that my APCD got me switched into the ecohotel, but I also felt that he should have done more to secure adequate housing in the first place. I still really wanted to have enough space to cook my own food, but I decided that I would continue to wait it out. In the meantime, the house was not being built. I didn't know who I could talk to get it built. I was conscious of the busy schedules of the men in my town, but I also could not be effective at all living out of my suitcase. I continued to talk to my host father and my 2 counterparts, in addition to one of the members on the junta directiva who could speak Spanish, with whom I became good friends.

Now with a friend in the junta directiva, I finally had someone who could advocate for me. Progress started to be made on the house, and I saw that some sticks were collected; they were to be the support beams of the house. I continued to inquire about the rest of the materials. I was told by my friend on the junta directiva that the town would have to wait for the full moon until the wood could be caught, because the wood is stronger during a full moon. This is due to the fact that there are no bugs in the wood when the moon is full. I believed this and said that I understood. I also said that I would be happy to go with them to cut the wood, that I really wanted to learn how to build a house. I knew that they could build a house quickly, because I had a seen a wooden hut go up in 2 days in a nearby community. The only step in the process that would take time would be the buying and laying of the cement.

This whole time, I traveled 3 hours away to have Q'eqchi classes with this new teacher. After the 1st class, I realized that he did not have a lesson plan at all. I had to tell him what I wanted to learn, because if I didn't do that he would teach me in a scattered manner, teaching a little bit of everything. He may have been able to speak many languages, but I had had a lot of language classes over the years, and I knew that I would never be able to learn this way. I switched yet again to a third teacher. It turned out that she had an excellent system, and I finally noticed myself significantly improving each week. It was a hassle to get to classes, the classes being 2 hours away, but I desperately wanted to have a work life and social life. Plus, it was interesting learning a Mayan language. Still, I wondered why Peace Corps did not help me more in finding a Q'eqchi teacher.

Meanwhile, I kept getting sick and kept traveling to a city to give stool samples. The house was still not being built. I decided to make a deal with the women in the one comedor in the community to start making me food. It was not a typical comedor; the people in the town did not eat there. It was only used by the tourists. It was staffed by only one woman, the women in town would take turns working there every month. I was now able to get a little more food, and the food was clean, but I did not like eating all my meals there, because I would have to eat alone. I did like spending time with my host family, but I decided I could no longer eat all my meals there. It was difficult to explain to them that I did not want to eat all 3 meals with them each day, because they did their best to welcome me into their home and provide for me what they had. Later on, right before I left the country, my boss criticized me for deciding to eat so many meals with them. I felt that a big part of being in Peace Corps was sharing experiences with the families in the community, and I did not want to completely cut myself off from them and make my chances at integrating that much more difficult. I found myself in a predicament. My host family did not seem to like that I was going somewhere else to eat some of my meals. I asked myself, Do I stay with them to appease them, or do I worry more about my own health? To this point, I always tried to put my needs after everyone else's, because I thought that is what you had to do to be a good Volunteer. Mentally, I did not think I could wait much longer for the house to be built, and I was hating myself for having these thoughts.

I'll put up the conclusion in the next couple of days.

Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Part 1)

2010-08-10T11:07:00.007-04:00

I know that many of you are interested in why I decided to leave Peace Corps Guatemala. This is my decision, the decision that was ultimately best for me. Life is too short to be unhappy, and I was not only unhappy, but miserable. In addition, I had lost my sense of humor during my time at my site, and for those of you who know me, you know how important free-spirited humor is to my life. This is not an attempt to berate Peace Corps, nor is it an attempt to convince people to stay away from the organization; Peace Corps is a wonderful organization witch much to offer. This is just one story among many Peace Corps stories. I hope you will appreciate it for what it is worth and reach your own conclusions based on the evidence. This report is obviously subjective, because it happened to me. I will do my best to describe the events leading to my decision as they unfolded. When writing something like this, it is difficult to not come across as overly negative and bitter. I write about the negative things because they are what caused me to make my decision. What I hope is that my story gives just one more perspective of the Peace Corps experience. Thanks for reading.

The main two factors that led to my decision were the lack of adequate housing in my site and communication issues, both with my community and the Peace Corps. My boss placed me in a site that, I believe, did not have housing prepared for me. I was placed in a tiny house typical of the houses that could be found in my town. It was made out of wooden boards. There were two huts, the first one was essentially one large room. This first hut had a tin roof, which was rare in my community. My room was separated by the main room by 4 wooden boards that were tacked up to form a makeshift wall. My APCD, or Assistant Peace Corps Director required the family to build this wall prior to receiving a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was easy to look through the large spaces in between the boards into my room, and if there was a great desire, it was not difficult to look over the top of the boards into the room, as well.

I remember the first night. I was terrified. My host dad showed me to my room, and I saw that there was a wooden table to my right, a wooden window above the table, and another wooden structure in the back of the room. I started to feel overwhelmed when I realized that the wooden structure would be my bed. Since I arrived at my site in the late afternoon, there was not time to buy a mattress. I also had not figured out a way to rig my mosquito net from the wooden boards, so that first night I slept on top of the wooden board wrapped in my mosquito, shuddering from fear of the tarantulas that were all over the walls.

The children would constantly look through the cracks in the walls. I constantly felt like I was being watched, and, in fact, I was. I could not go anywhere in the tiny community without everyone knowing exactly what I had been, what I was doing at that moment, and what I would be doing later. That, however, is to be expected in a town of 300 people where a Volunteer from the US sticks out like a sore thumb. On the contrary, I did not feel that I should be faced with constant scrutiny and watchful eyes in my own room. It may have been better if I had my own room separate from the family, but I technically shared one room with 7 other people. If there was a light on in the other room, it was on in my room. If there was a baby screaming or crying in the other room, which happened constantly, it was like they were screaming in my room. I barely slept at all due to the large number of infants screaming throughout the night. I would not be able to fall asleep easily, and I would wake up multiple times during the night due to incessant racket. Throughout the first couple weeks and months, I kept telling myself that Peace Corps is supposed to be difficult, and that I was a bad person for even thinking about complaining, since this is how people live in this community. At times, there were 16 people in this house. 7 would sleep in the first main room, and the rest would sleep in the kitchen. My host mother and father had a room that was still part of the second structure, but it was off to the side of the kitchen. partially blocking it from the constant fumes.

Food was another story altogether. I ate my meals with the host family, giving them money to buy food. The portions they gave me were meager. I wanted to be polite, so I did my best not to complain about the food. Early on, when talking about the need for more food with my host dad and host brother, the only two in the family who could speak Spanish, I was told that food was hard to come by, and that they could not offer much. I accepted it, acknowledging that I realized food was scarce, but that I needed a little more, because my body was used to more food. I tried to always place the blame elsewhere, on my body, on Peace Corps, on anything else but myself. I wanted everyone to like me. I wanted to blend in.

There would always be plenty of tortillas, but a diet based solely on tortillas does not provide much nutrients. In addition to the tortillas, there would be one other food item, and on very rare occasions, a third item. Sometimes it would be one scrambled egg. Other times it would be a tiny bowl of beans. On occasion, all I would get was a bowl of hierbas, a leafy plant that would be boiled. It tasted what I think leaves and grass would taste like. Most of the time, there were parts of the leaf that could not be chewed, and I ended up spitting most of the food back into the bowl. Again, I did not want to complain because this is what everyone in the family ate on a daily basis. For a couple days, the family only ate mushrooms that they had found outside. They told me that they may upset my stomach and suggested that I not eat them. I was happy to heed their advice.

Almost all of the food was extremely greasy. It was cooked over an open fire in a large black cauldron. Over time, after about a month, I developed intense acid reflux. After swallowing something, an intense pain would rise in my chest, as if someone had just punched me. After laying down to sleep, I would have pain so severe that I had difficulty breathing. The same thing happened when I did anything active, such as playing soccer with the guys in the community. I kept hoping it would just go away. As my problems and concerns compounded, I remained scared to call Peace Corps for help. Past Volunteers told me that my APCD hated complainers, and being one of his favorites, I did not want to get on his bad side.

Yet, I constantly became ill from the food that I was eating. I had diarrhea every week and perpetual stomach pain. This was not happening to just me. It seemed like every week that there was someone who was very sick in my host family. It probably stemmed from unsanitary food. Women would carry ducks across the kitchen to take them outside. There would always be wild animals, such as ducks, chickens and stray dogs that would wander through the kitchen. After touching the animals, the women would not wash their hands. Children would urinate on the kitchen floor. I was terrified to eat with this family; everything that was happening was running contrary to what we were taught by the medical office staff during training. I wanted to integrate, though, and I kept my mouth shut for the time being.

Everyone in the family continued to get sick, one 2 year old girl even became deathly ill. She had a fever that had not broken for 4 days, and the family was not giving her water. I tried to convince my host dad and host brother that they needed to keep her hydrated and that it was very dangerous for an infant to have a fever for such a long period of time. They looked at me almost mockingly, wondering why this foreigner was giving advice on how to care for their family member. The girl began throwing up worms and looked like she was about to die. Her eyes rolled back, and she could not get the strength to move any part of her body. She used to be a jovial and vibrant, but everything had changed. I argued with my host brother, who was her father, that he needed to take her to the hospital very soon, even if it would cost a lot of money. I left the house after having conversations with him extremely frustrated. Tears would well up in my eyes as I thought about how this child may not live to see another day. I knew that the death of a child was commonplace for the families in my community, but I knew that it could be prevented. The next day, my host brother took his daughter to the hospital, paid 200 quetzales, or $25, and got the medicine. In a few days, she was back to normal. 200 quetzales was a LOT of money for the family, but they saved the girl's life, and they were happy that they made the decision to do it. The Peace Corps experience was really starting to have an effect on my mental and physical health.

All of this time I struggled to communicate in a site where the primary language was not Spanish. 90% of my town of 300 did not speak Spanish. Being in the top Spanish group during training, I guess my APCD figured that I would be able to quickly learn another language. However, I was sent to this site without any training in the Qeqchi, the Mayan spoken in the area where I was living. Not one class. I spent the first 2 months scrambling to find a good Qeqchi teacher. The problem is that most Qeqchi teachers do not know how to explain grammar. They are unable to answer seemingly simple questions, and soon both the teacher and the student become incredibly frustrated.

I will forever wonder why I was not trained at all in the Mayan language. I am sure that Volunteers in Kyrgyztan are not sent out into their communities with zero knowledge of the community's primary language. Volunteers in China do not go to their sites lacking any knowledge of Chinese. It just didn't make any sense to me.

I first found a teacher in my community. He was a pre-primary teacher, and was a nice guy, but I realized that he was unable to provide quality instruction. He would give me lists of words to memorize, words such as "crab" and "hanging." He did not have a clear lesson plan, and I decided to find another teacher. I called the Peace Corps language office and asked for help. The head of the language department said that she could schedule a week of intensive study in a town 3 hours away. I jumped on the opportunity.

The week turned out to be a disaster. The classes were given in an area that did not speak Qeqchi, but instead spoke another Mayan language, Pokomchi. The instructor was absolutely awful, and attempted to teach from a computer program that he had. Anytime that I asked him a question, he could not answer. He would refer to books, but he was never able to find anything. If I let him go, he would look through the books for 30 minutes or longer. He seemed to agree with whatever I said in order to get me to stop asking questions. I was later told by other teachers that he was not teaching me correct Qeqchi.

During the week I was staying with a host family. The host father was an intelligent man, a linguist who spoke several Mayan languages. He was available to help me during the first night. He really seemed to know what he was doing. I liked his dynamic, interactive method, and I would later decide that I wanted him to teach me. This lasted for 2 weeks, until I realized that he also did not have any lesson plan, requiring me to tell him exactly what I wanted to learn, lest I let him go off on incomprehensible tangents. Though I was extremely eager to learn Qeqchi so that I could communicate with the people in my town and have some sort of social life, I did not think that I should be the one responsible to develop lesson plans. I ultimately left my 2nd teacher and switched to yet another teacher in a city 2 hours away from my site. She proved to be the best, and I finally felt like I was making some progress. In the back of my mind, I questioned why Peace Corps did not do more to arrange classes with an effective teacher. Having no experience in the matter, I was forced to look for myself. This was only made more difficult by the array of problems that I was dealing with at my site.

During the first day of the week of intensive classes, I got really sick and had to rush to give a stool sample. For several hours I was unable to leave the bathroom for more than 2 minutes at a time,much to the annoyance of the other patients trying to give stool samples in the one bathroom that this lab had. I called the Medical Officer and was diagnosed and treated for giardia. I was violently ill the entire day, and I was getting fed up. I decided to call my training director, someone who I felt that I had developed a good relationship with during training. I also knew that I could speak in English with him in order to clearly describe all of my frustrations. Little did I know, this would be the beginning of a downward spiral and my eventual decision to leave the country.

I left Peace Corps, and that's OK.

2010-08-04T17:27:00.005-04:00

To all my friends and family, to all those who stumbled upon my blog and decided to support me, to everyone who took the time to learn about my life and the lives of others of which I tried so hard to meld my own with, I want to say thank you for following me on my journey. I find myself back in the United States after making the agonizingly difficult, gut-wrenching decision to leave the Peace Corps after 7 months in Guatemala. It had been a dream of mine for several years, since my freshman year in college at the University of Delaware, to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. To realize that the dream that you have held onto for years is crumbling, the pieces of a once idyllic image sifting through your hands like grains of sand, is very, very difficult to swallow.

Ultimately, what it came down to was a health hazard and a shocking unwillingness to provide any support on the part of the Peace Corps administration. I stand by my belief that I was placed in a site that was not ready for a Peace Corps Volunteer. Through many efforts to make the situation better and exhaust all my options prior to leaving, I came to the realization that it would be harmful to my mental and physical health to remain in such a situation.

I am disappointed by the outcome and saddened that I was forced to leave my community, but, given the circumstances, it was the best decision for me. Maybe it is a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because I believe that the Peace Corps experience was for me; I believe that I had much to offer, and I will continue forward searching for the next opportunity where I can do my part to make the world a little better, a little brighter.

The Peace Corps is a wonderful organization with the capability to enact change all over the globe, but it is also severely flawed. This post will be followed by another explaining the tumultuous series of events that led to my unfortunate decision. Let it be a warning to Peace Corps applicants with grandiose ideas of their future employer. There is a dark side to the development organization with the cuddly name. I will do my best to tell the story as it happened to me, and then I will give you a story about my last days at my site and talk about the people I left behind. In the end, it's about people; Peace Corps administration interactions with Peace Corps Volunteers and Peace Corps Volunteer interactions with host communities are just two examples of important relationships that must form for a successful Peace Corps experience to ensue. When individuals are treated like numbers, problems arise. I am not just a number, which is kind of what I felt like during my time in the Peace Corps.

Let's Go to Church!

2010-07-16T13:17:00.004-04:00

As promised, here is the story I wrote for the Peace Corps Volunteer newsletter. It won the best submission award, because it is the funniest thing you will ever read. I am a really modest person. Enjoy.

Let’s Go to Church!

I live in a small town. 300 people small. So, when I am asked to attend the local Baptist church one to three times every week, I don’t have much of an option to evade the request. Envisioning myself sitting on a crooked wooden bench listening to puro Q’eqchi’ for the next three hours, I ponder the consequences of telling my inquisitor that I would rather have diarrhea while fending off a swarm of angry bats on the dilapidated latrine out back. Because I have done that. Because I know it is more fun than going to the Baptist church.

But I don’t do this. Instead, I dress up by tucking in my favorite short-sleeved, checkered, confianza-building shirt into my blue jeans and lace up my once respectable-looking brown Clarks. I’ve had these shoes for years; they have given support to the soles of my feet on multiple continents, and they desperately crave the attention of an overzealous Antigua shoeshine boy. Alas, shoeshine boys are not to be found in the serene aldea of Candelaria Camposanto in northern Alta Verapaz.

I start to focus on the events that are about to unfold, and I mentally prepare myself. Then, my host mother walks by topless, completely shattering my concentration. I still haven’t gotten used to that. She proceeds to bathe herself and three of her smaller children at the pila in the front yard, mere feet from my room. The children whine and moan, but Doña Paulina is in control and is not afraid to manhandle a youngster to prepare him or her for three hours of holy humdrum.
The children are clean, and off we go. We saunter down the short dirt path to the main road and turn left toward the church. On the gray pavement, the heat from the sun pricks our bodies, its rays already overwhelming at 9 AM. In no hurry to travel the 50 meters to the church, we sizzle on down the road, like lonely pancakes forgotten by an aloof teenager on a diner grill. The heat is tremendous most days in sleepy Candelaria Camposanto, and we move slowly and gracefully, as if we were to go slow enough the sun might not realize we were there and forget to shine on us.
The church is a bright green building, its hues starkly contrasting the muted browns of the wooden huts that line the road. You would never know that this is a church. In this shack of God, this unimposing box of wooden slabs, time stands still.

I enter and take my normal seat in the back right corner of the church. Heads turn and the churchgoers begin their routine staring, forming a sea of fixated eyes and gaping mouths. I am an oddity, a great novelty, and most likely will continue to be one for the remainder of my service. I wave and smile, which is the best way to combat one who is prone to chronic staring and get him to stop. I had previously tried simply staring back to see who would be the first to avert his glance, but Guatemalans take staring seriously, and after 20 seconds of being uncomfortable, I usually look away like a wounded, defenseless deer.
Inside the church there are ten wooden benches, 5 on the left side and 5 on the right side. Women sit on the left and men sit on the right. It reminds me of a middle school dance. My mind begins to wander, and I think about which of these Q’eqchi’ women would make the make the best dance partner. I decide on a woman in the third row with a cherry-red huipil. I then decide it is too early in the service to be losing my mind, and I fix my attention toward the front of the room.

It seems almost anachronistic. Two five-foot speakers loom over other electronic equipment and musical instruments. They don’t belong at all. They seem to be wondering amongst themselves how they ever got so lost on their way to Nashville.
The service starts off with a preacher. I call him the warm-up preacher, because he lacks a certain prowess for the act. He teaches lessons using a Q’eqchi’-Spanish version of the Bible. He is not particularly adept at reading. Through his mumbling and fumbling I can tell that today he is talking about Moses and his miraculous journey out of Egypt. Most of the churchgoers are completely uninterested in what is going on around them. Most prefer to stare at me instead. I consider that I am capturing more attention than Moses, and I smile. Moses parts the Red Sea. I grin and play with my beard.

Looking up, I see that hanging from the ceiling are cheap plastic tablecloths that contain designs of flowers and leaves. It’s as if the church is preparing for a summer picnic on the ceiling. The decorations appear to have been strewn from one end of the church to the other hurriedly and haphazardly, as if the person doing the hanging either really wanted to start a picnic, or really wished he was somewhere else, doing anything else.

There is no time to ponder that, however, because the musicians are setting up, and it’s time for the songs. Far more women than men attend this church, and I have a strong inclination to think that most of the men only come because they get to play with their instruments.
Each church service has singing. Today, it appears that Catalina, one of my host sisters, will be singing. The music begins, and it is deafening. The volume level would be more appropriate for a death metal concert. Then, Catalina begins to sing, and she is shockingly terrible. One man wails on his drums, another thrashes on the bass, a third hammers away on his guitar, and a fourth seems to be viciously attacking his keyboard. The intense noise pummels me; it is too much for me to take. My heart rate quickens, and I begin to sweat. My ears begin to moisten, and I reach to wipe away the fluid pooling near my earlobes. Are my ears bleeding from this music, or is that just excess saldo seeping out, left over from a triple saldo day spending spree gone wrong?
Catalina continues to “sing.” I think the prerequisite for being a church singer in Guatemala is that one must be able to sing horrendously. Catalina succeeds wildly at this. Her screams escape from her mouth and scatter around the room, searching to pierce any available eardrum, like a drunken knight desperately trying to joust his opponent. I have noticed something about church singers in Guatemala. They don’t appear to enjoy singing. They howl because they have to. They yelp out of a necessity to fulfill their religious duties. Catalina screams stoically and stone-faced. I wouldn’t call it musical. I would say that she either screams or screams louder. As she reaches the loudest parts of the song, she continues to stare straight ahead, unabated, unflinching. Instead of looking like she is in the process of singing, she looks like she is in the process of letting out a big sneeze. Suddenly, the song ends, Catalina, still stoic as can be, drops her Q’eqchi songbook and marches back to her seat.

A man, who appears to be in his mid-forties and is wearing a white short-sleeved button-down shirt and brown khaki pants, walks up to the front of the room, and he begins to preach. He is much more eloquent than his predecessor. As he barks the word of God, my mind begins to wander, and my thoughts get lost in the peaks and valleys of the inflection of his passionate sermon. Lulled into a daze, I begin to focus on other things when I realize that he has switched back to Spanish. I then hear my name and manage to catch the end of his sentence, “and now Jordan will tell us about his country.” People turn around and commence their staring.

Not cool, I think to myself. In an attempt to stall and collect my thoughts, I ask, “Ummm what do you want to me to talk about?”

“Just tell us about the United States,” he calmly responds.

“Ummm alright,” I stammer. What could I possibly say to get these people to relate to my life in the United States? Angry that the preacher has put me on the spot, my mind races as I decide where to begin. I look up, as if the summer picnic tablecloths possess the answers, and I begin to talk about religion in the United States and about the numerous religions and churches that we have. I see some grins and nods of affirmation, and I realize that I am on a roll. Then, for some reason, I think about elementary school history, and the words “melting pot” jump into my head. I talk about how the United States is a nation of many different peoples from all over the world. I find myself blurting out, “In the United States, Africans, Asians, and Europeans live together in peace.” Knowing very well that most of my audience can’t understand a word of what I am saying, the absurdity of my current situation hits me. I do my best to stifle fits of laughter. Soon I am finished describing the incredibly dazzling utopia that is the United States, and everyone seems satisfied. I exhale deeply.

The service soon comes to end. I breathe a sigh of relief as the preacher brings things to a close. Suddenly he calls a woman up to the front to say a few words. I can only see her back as she rises from the second row and walks to the front, but I can see that she is carrying a baby. She turns around, and I realize that she is breastfeeding a small child. She continues to breastfeed her child during the entirety of her 3-minute remarks, because, of course, that is what you do in church.

The often topless host mom with some of her children.

The church.

Look at this list

2010-07-05T13:01:00.004-04:00

I currently find myself in Antigua, Guatemala, or the Guatemala version of Disneyworld. It is developed, beautiful, has loads of tourists, and it is absolutely not what I think of when I think of Guatemala. Sure, it is nice to escape to a European-like city for a couple of days, but I believe I am experiencing somehwhat of a culture shock. Going from living a very basic life with the 300 people in my tiny village to a place that has incredible things such as lights, buildings that are not made out of sticks, stairs, and an ample supply of food has me dealing with sensory overload.

So what brings this small-town boy to the big city? I am here for an all-volunteer conference, Peace Corps-sponsored 4th of July festivities and a week of Q'eqchi classes in the Peace Corps center. I will be spending the better part of the month of July in Antigua due to these events and ecotourism meetings with my bosses.

The 4th of July party was a great time with hundreds of Peace Corps Guatemala Volunteers in attendance. I had one of those life-is-pretty-cool moments when my friend Kristin beautifully sang the national anthem at the beginning of the party. I thought about how lucky I am to be an American, how proud I am of the work that Peace Corps Volunteers do, and how honored I am to have been chosen to accept this tremendous responsibility. As far as I can tell, we only get one shot at this thing called life, and we are all interconnected, so why not use the opportunities that I have been given to create opportunities for others? Everybody wins when friendships and work relationships are forged across national boundaries.

I don't have the patience to write out all of the things that have happened to me recently, and if I am going to sit down to write out a blog post, I am going to spend my time writing interesting stories that highlight enlightening events, oddities, or the curious cast of characters that I meet during my service. Therefore, look at this list.

Spoke with the US Ambassador at the Peace Corps 4th of July party for 15 minutes about learning mayan languages and life in the Foreign Service
designed a brochure and t-shirt for my site

got my phone stolen from my pocket(put a major damper on what was going to be a much-needed break for me)
designed an inventory system using Excel for the store that my assocation runs
developed incapicitating acid reflux from the nasty food at my site and had to spend Q1000 on three different types of medicine
Construction started on my house, and it should be done by the time I get back from Antigua in a week

diarrhea

I have been getting much better at speaking Q'eqchi in my site(Some kid asked if I took a pill to become smart, because he wanted to know why I could learn Spanish and Q'eqchi, but he only could speak Qeqchi.I laughed and used that as an opportunity to tell im about the importance of studying, practice and hard work. He didn't understand a single word I said. This is a common occurrence in my site. So it goes.)

My submission for the Volunteer-run publication, The Ego, won the best submission award, which is proof that goofy anecdotes about topless host mothers and howling church singers can be written about tastefully(I will upload my story within the next couple weeks)

Ma tooxik chi awk? (Part 2)

2010-06-26T17:44:00.003-04:00

Two bites later I can start to feel the first wave of heat from the chile in the tamal. Push through this, Jordan. You are not a wimp, I think to myself, knowing full well, that when it comes to spicy foods, I am the crown prince of wimps.
In between bites of my fire-laden tamal, I take time to observe my surroundings. To my left are women working tirelessly over an open fire making tortillas and preparing food for the day. Women here in the campo never cease to impress me; they are indefatigable, spending almost the entirety of their days either cooking over an open fire or cleaning the house and surrounding area. To my right is a frail, old man. His creased, wrinkled face tells the story of a long, difficult life. His back is severely hunched, like a crude implement used in metallurgy that has had its shape formed by years and years of exposure to intense heat. He is Santiago and Domingo’s father, thus making him the true owner of this house. I do my best to mask my astonishment when I realize that he is going to join us in the fields. He methodically takes each of the men’s bags and fills them with seed. My bag is the last to be filled.

My bag full of corn and bean seeds, the time has finally come to set out on my first day farming in the fields of northern Guatemala. We form a line and begin to trudge down a path that leads away from the back of the house. We continue to plod through a beautiful, green wooded area. Like a snake, single-file we slither over rolling hills that become more and more beautiful the farther we go. After some time, the men stop and, with their machetes, hack away at the low-hanging branches of nearby trees. They then use their machetes to carve one end of their 4-foot poles into sharp points capable of the task that they are intended to perform, that being to plunge into the earth. The men content with their farming implements, we continue along down the path.

Finally, after 5 more minutes of slithering up and over more hills we arrive at an area with a much different landscape. The land is jagged and rocky, and gray boulders jut out from a hill with a very steep incline. This cannot possibly be where we are farming, I ponder, but it is. This is the land that they own. The men slowly begin to form a horizontal line facing the hill, and the elder Santiago commences a prayer. The men drop their poles to the ground, close their eyes and mutter in unison. It is a moment for reflection, a moment to ask for a productive harvest. I look down the line and think about how these men rely on these harvests to feed their families. I think about how one year ago I was most likely in a bar in Newark, Delaware celebrating the end of my college career. I think about how much can change in a year; how paradigms can shift and lives can alter their course.

The prayer ends, and the last muttered words seem to float away with a slight breeze that passes between us. Then, the work begins. With one hand in their bag of seed preparing a handful of beans and corn and the other hand on their farming staffs, the men move forward stabbing the ground with their natural farming tools and throw the seed into the 4-inch wide indentation in the earth. Then they move forward a meter and repeat the process. The men inch forward in a slow-moving line. They move forward together; they sembrar together, because, in a practice routed in hundreds of years of tradition, to do it any other way would be unthinkable. The branches of the trees that they use to carve small holes in the ground are part of nature. The seeds that they toss into the holes have been gathered from past harvests, also part of nature. It is nature shaping nature, and the Mayans, knowing all that there is to know about their surroundings, by nature, are adept at tilling their land.

I catch on quickly, but I struggle with evenly spacing the holes in perfect 1 meter by 1 meter squares. What I believe is 1 meter away from my last hole and 1 meter away from the man working next to me is never so. I constantly look to the line of holes next to mine for guidance on where to make my next hole. The men never need to look. They can sense where their next holes should be, and they are never wrong.

The work is long and tiring, but I wouldn’t call it boring. There is a simple satisfaction in doing this work, knowing that each seed planted will bear fruit for the families of the men doing the planting. Yet, after 8 hours of work, I find myself sunburned and tired with blisters on my hands. I did not work as quickly as the other men, but I worked by their sides. My seed planted will not earn the biggest portion of the harvest in a few months time, but I earned respect. Soon after we started to sembrar, the men began to joke with me and call me Qawachin, a term of respect, usually accorded to older men. It may have been because my beard makes me look older – a man in my community thought I was 35 years old the other day- but I think it was because they felt like I was one of them.

At the end of the day we made our way back to the house of Don Santiago, who is a warrior in his household. He is an ancient warrior that finds the withering body that is his armor betraying him, but he is a proud warrior nonetheless. We are back in the house where we started the morning, and we take our places on the benches. Don Santiago gets up and hobbles over to a tiny altar in the corner of the room. He lights candles, says a Mayan prayer and paces back and forth in front of us waving a metal container filled with incense. I breathe in the potent fumes and get a light, heady feeling. The feeling is peculiar, almost mystical.

Eventually, the food is distributed. After a day out in the fields, it is customary to eat caldo, or soup, with chicken. A large basket of tortillas is placed in the center of the floor. There is a red and white checkered cloth covering the tortillas, trapping the heat inside. Next, Don Santiago, because he is the owner of the house, begins to beckon to each man. In Q’eqchi he tells the man to eat. At the end, he tells us all to eat. The men respectfully wait for the cue. The men savor the food. I savor the experience. I believe that I have been welcomed into an important ritual of the Mayan family. This is the type of experience that I hoped to have as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

The day is coming to a close; the sun is setting, and I find myself standing on the side of the road with my host family waiting for a ride back to our town. Most microbuses are full and will not slow for us. The process of watching and waiting continues for almost 30 minutes. Hopes rise as a microbus appears on the horizon and then fall as the driver flashes his headlights to signal that the bus is full. There being 7 of us, it does not appear we will have luck with a microbus anyway. Our best option will be to hail a passing pick-up truck. Don Santiago is tired from a 9-hour day in the fields, and I can sense his exasperation at our inability to get a ride back to town. I turn towards him, and say, “I guess we should have prayed for a microbus when we prayed for a good harvest.” He lets out a big, bellowing laugh and slaps me lovingly on the back.

Suddenly, a half-full pick-up truck appears. Chugging along, it appears to be straining to transport its passengers. We all pile into the back and slap the top of the truck to signal that we are all securely in our positions and that the driver can start driving. I am standing in the middle of the truck bed, closest to the front of the truck. The rest of the family, expect for 5-year old Julio, is sitting behind me. Julio is at my side peering over the top of the truck. The driver accelerates and the wind begins to rush through my hair. Rough, roaring blasts of wind hit my face. I almost can’t keep my eyes open, because the wind seals my eyelids shut. However, I work to pry them open because I don’t want to miss the view. In my opinion, this is the best, albeit not the safest, way to travel in Guatemala. Flying down the road like a soaring bird, free of worries, I find that I can’t stop smiling. I turn to my right and Julio, with his cheeks and hair flapping in the wind, is also smiling. Looking behind me, the rest of the family is staring off into the distance, all smiling. The sun is setting, which means that the day is ending. We are all smiling, which means that right here, right now, everything is alright.

One of the caves at my site. It's called "Ventana de Seguridad"
The comedor that my association runs.
I have been staying at this ecohotel. There are 20 beds in 6 rooms. It is very cramped, and I am excited to have my own house soon. I think that once I move into my place and feel a little more settled, I will be able to be more effective.

Ma tooxik chi awk? (Part 1)

2010-06-11T13:49:00.003-04:00

Hey World,

This is something that I have been working on for a while. I haven´t been writing much recently, because most of my energy is being spent on dealing with Peace Corps and my miserable living situation. The most recent update is that I have moved into an ecohotel that we have on our site. It is comprised of 8 small rooms, each containing a light and 2 beds. It is still not ideal, but at least now it is quiet enough to fall asleep at night. Getting more food is still a work in progress. Enjoy the first part of this story.

Ma tooxik chi awk?

You are probably wondering about the meaning of my blog post title. Ma tooxik chi awk means “Are we going to sembrar?(plant seed or sow) in Q’eqchi’, the mysterious language of the Mayans who lived, and still live, in northern Guatemala and southern Belize. I did not expect this to be one of my first phrases in Q’eqchi’, but, then again, my service so far has been a lesson in expecting the unexpected. My limits have been tested and my breaking point has been reached and then extended as my reserves for tolerance and discomfort deepen with each passing day. I’ve always been a proponent of the belief that one does not mature and grow significantly until one steps outside of one’s comfort zone, but sometimes I feel like my comfort zone took a one-way flight to Fiji. Nevertheless, no one joins the Peace Corps to continue the life that they have in the States- or at least I certainly hope that is not the intention of aspiring Peace Corps Volunteers- and I came to Guatemala seeking a challenge, a whole new world. I found that here in my tiny rural village, and it is having a profound impact on me. Still not being able to communicate effectively, I attempt to communicate through my actions. Thus, I went to farm; to plant seed; to awk, and I think ended up sowing the seeds of something else.

It started with an off-hand remark by my host father, Don Santiago. He mentioned that he would be going into the fields to sembrar at the end of May and jokingly remarked that I should join him. I pounced on the opportunity and replied that I would be happy to join him and learn how people farm in this area. He laughed off my comment as if to say that there would be no way that I could handle the experience and that my brittle gringo bones would crumble in the process. Ever persistent, I told him that I seriously wanted to come with him to sembrar during the end of May. Don Santiago then proceeded to change the subject, and I got the impression that he assumed I was being facetious in my desire to help him.

Sooner or later it was the end of May, and I still wanted to sembrar. I approached Don Santiago once again and asked if I could go with him into the fields. He replied that he would be leaving to sembrar in two days and that the work would be too difficult for a foreigner. I insisted that I am becoming more Guatemalan every day, but the debate continued. Don Santiago insisted, “It is too hot.”

“I like hot weather,” I retorted.

“The food will be too spicy. You don’t like spicy food.”

“I’ll eat it.”

“You will have to wake up very early.”

“If I wake up before you leave, are you going to not let me go?” That one got him.

“We will go tomorrow,” he finally said, caving into my pressure.

I woke up before 5 the next morning. My head hurt. Momentarily dazed, I wondered why my alarm was set for so early in the morning. Then I remembered that today was the big day. I was going to sembrar. I wearily rose from my bed and went outside to go to the bathroom. Not feeling like walking the 50 meters to the decrepit latrine, I urinated into a nearby area of overgrown plants. This is one advantage of living in the jungle in a rural village. Next, I stumbled into the kitchen to commence my morning routine. Typically I meander in to find anywhere from 5 to 8 people sitting in the kitchen. The women are huddled around the fire preparing the food, and my host mother is usually sitting in a hammock breastfeeding her youngest child. Conversations stop, I smile, say good morning, mumble some pleasantries in Q’eqchi and sit down on a small wooden bench more suitable for a 5-year old child. There are only two benches that surround the one table in the kitchen.

Don Santiago enters from a room adjacent to the kitchen. He is beaming. His smile is so big that it seems to precede him, as it if it is guiding him into the room, tugging him along like a dog on a leash. He clearly did not think I would wake up early enough to join him in the fields. “We are going somewhere else to eat,” he declares with a smile. “We need to get a ride to the fields.” He then hands me a brightly colored, intricately woven messenger bag, which, he tells me, I will use to carry seeds of corn and beans.

Carrying my bag, I return to my room to lather myself with sunscreen and lace up my hiking boots. I wish that I had knee-high mud boots like the rest of the men in my community, but I have not been able to find a store that sells shoes in sizes greater than size 43. I wear size 47. Men typically laugh at me and inquire about my lack of mud boots, and then they laugh at my explanation of not being able to find boots in my size. Then, I typically tell them that I have clown feet, and gesture towards my ski-like feet. Surprisingly, most men in my town know the word for clown in “Spanish.” Therefore, this has been one of my most successful jokes. If I am feeling especially giddy, I will tell the men that my father has even bigger feet and then watch them as their heads explode while they ponder the worldly causes for such a deformity.

Don Santiago comes to my room and signals that it is time to go. We trudge out to the main road. The sun has begun to rise over the community, and the lights meshes with the canvas that is the Earth, painting a pretty picture of light reds and oranges, like a crackling fire that is about to die out or burst into flames, depending on your point of view. We walk for approximately 10 minutes down the road talking about the different crops that he harvests, and the time of year which he does so. I tell him about seasonal trends and weather patterns in the United States, and he smiles with pride when he learns that there is only enough rain and warm weather for one harvest of corn per year in New York. Santiago is a man who is extremely proud of Guatemala and all that its land has to offer. I wouldn’t call him a nationalist – his experiences hardly extend beyond his tiny town- he is more a man of the earth, a true descendant of the Mayans.

Eventually, we are able to flag down a passing pick-up truck, and we get a ride to a town a couple kilometers away. After giving the driver a few quetzals for the fare, we cross the road and climb up a hill that leads to a smattering of small wooden huts. We stop in front of one of the huts. There are a large amount of children milling in front of the house, as there always are in front of the tiny wooden huts of the poorest communities in Alta Verapaz. Poverty is crowded.

A rotund, middle-aged man, who appears to be the owner of the house, beckons to us and ushers us inside. The man’s name is Domingo, and he is Santiago’s brother. Domingo is a large, jovial man, and his stomach protrudes from the bottom of his shirt. Santiago immediately comments that Domingo is his older, fatter brother. Domingo seems to take pride in his big stature. I simply nod, agreeing that he is, indeed, quite large.

Inside the house there are 3 benches set up in the shape of a horseshoe. In between the benches is a basket full of bean-filled tamales wrapped in leaves. The men nod at me as I sit down on one of the benches. They smile, but their eyes express their astonishment that a gringo, a norteamericano, has come to sembrar with them. They greet me in Q’eqchi and are impressed when I am able to respond to their salutations. Their body language is a silent affirmation of my acceptance; the men gesture to the basket and encourage me to eat. The Q’eqchi are typically a quiet people, and this is especially true during meal times. We eat our tamales slowly and solemnly with our heads slightly bowed.

Lack of Updates

2010-06-06T12:46:00.004-04:00

Hey Everyone,

I want to a better job of updating, but these last couple of weeks have been extremely difficult. I am still trying to deal with a downright awful living situation. My community should be starting to build my house this week. On a more positive note, I have found a better Qeqchi teacher, and I am starting to notice some progress with my speaking ability and listening comprehension.

In the future I will attempt to avoid writing depressing, gloomy posts. I have an interesting post in the works about an experience I had farming with the men in my community, and you can expect that to be posted on my blog within a week.

For my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps Trainees and applicants, if Peace Corps places you in a living situation that does not meet minimum requirements, stand up for yourselves! Peace Corps needs to know that we are individuals, not numbers that are sent to Washington. Yes, I understand that we have committed ourselves, as first stated John F. Kennedy so many years ago, to serve for 2 years in foreign countries, without salaries and frequently in conditions of hardship. But one`s health, both mental and physical, MUST be a priority. Having a better living situation will enable me to begin to focus on my work and become more effective. With time, I will learn to speak Qeqchi. The most challenging experiences are the most valuable, and nothing worth doing is easy. I hope that holds true for my Peace Corps experience.

Living and Speaking

2010-05-24T15:48:00.003-04:00

The room that I basically share with 4 other people. Note the gravel pile in the middle of the house.

A typical bed in the house

My room is on the other side of those boards. If there is a light on in this room, it is on in my room, and if there is screaming and crying in this room, there is screaming and crying in my room.

I know. I missed my weekly update, but I have been busy this past week. For those of you just tuning in to my Peace Corps saga, I have been struggling during these first two months at my site. I was given a very challenging site, and I have spent the majority of my time making my living situation bearable. My frustration stems from two big issues: housing options and my inability to speak Q’eqchi.

I described my living situation shortly after arriving to my site, and not much has changed since then. Although I run the risk of sounding like a whiner, I want to give an honest assessment of my location. The extremely cramped, impoverished conditions forced me to call Peace Corps and ask for help. One of my main arguments was based on the fact that living with this host family is preventing me from getting two necessities: adequate sleep and adequate nourishment. I will typically wake up very early or have trouble falling asleep because of crying and screaming children in the room next to mine. Technically it is all part of the same room since the only thing that separates me from 4 other people sleeping a couple of feet away from me are five wooden boards nailed into place; boards that do not even reach the ceiling. I am quite literally living on top of this family of 10 in a very small house. In addition, I believe that I am repeatedly getting sick from the unsanitary conditions in the kitchen. The kitchen is a dirt floor, and I have seen children urinate on the group, in addition to having noticed wild dogs and chickens walking around the fire where the women cook the food. I signed up to be a Peace Corps Volunteer with the understanding that I might be asked to live in conditions of hardship, and I have in the past lived in conditions of hardship in Africa, but I had no idea I would have to constantly be so worried about maintaining my health.

Thus, in a cry for help, and a desperate attempt to make things more bearable, I called my Peace Corps bosses to inquire about my options in changing my living situation, the underlying dilemma being that there is no other viable option in my small community of 300. After firmly explaining my overwhelming situation, my boss was receptive to my concerns and supportive of my arguments. He told me that Peace Corps would be willing to pay for a house to be built. I have never heard of this happening before, thus leading me to believe that my situation is extreme. I do not need much; I simply need a 5 square meter shack that gives me enough for a sleeping area and a kitchen, because right now there is not enough space to make even those partitions.

Moving on to my frustrations with Q’eqchi, Peace Corps arranged for me to spend the week in a city to take an intensive Qeqchi course with an ostensibly highly qualified instructor. The teacher turned out to be horrendous. He was unable to answer what I consider very simple questions, and he had to refer to a book after every single one of my questions. He was seemingly incapable of thinking for himself, and he tended to agree with whatever I said, perhaps to rid me of my urge to ask more questions.

Luckily, during that week, I stayed with a host family who was very welcoming. The father of the host family is also a Q’eqchi teacher, and he was able to teach me during my first night in their home. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was a capable teacher who was very dynamic and engaging. I immediately felt like I was learning. Throughout my scholastic career, I have taken my fair share of language classes, and I have an idea of how they should be run. While grammatical exercises and translation are an unavoidable part of any language class, a language class should be focused on conversation. After all, children do not learn languages from flashcards and memorization. They see an object, learn the word for the object through repetition and then slowly began to learn the verbs that relate to that object. This is the method that Rosetta Stone utilizes, which simplifies the process of learning a second language later on in life.

Later on in the week of classes, my inquisitive host family sensed that classes were not going well, and they suggested that I take classes with Don Gerardo, the host father. They told me that he works away from home Tuesday through Saturday, but that he would love to give classes on his two rest days. I ecstatically jumped on the opportunity and called Don Gerardo to finalize the terms of the classes.

The next step was to get Peace Corps to approve my taking classes in a city 3 hours away from my site. They would need to pay for transportation, housing for one night, and provide money for the instructor. After a bit of haggling with Peace Corps staff, I convinced them that it is critical to my success as a Peace Corps Volunteer that I receive quality Q’eqchi classes. As I have mentioned in other posts, there is hardly anyone who speaks Spanish in my site. This includes the members of the organization that I was assigned to work with. Frankly, I find it astonishing that Peace Corps did not provide me with any Qeqchi classes before sending me off to my site. I understand that I am only one of a handful of Volunteers – probably less than 5 – in all of PC Guatemala that need to completely rely on a Mayan language to be successful, but neglecting to provide us with even a base in our respective languages is a bit absurd. Sometimes I feel that PC Guatemala spends too much time thinking of us numbers and statistics that get sent to Washington and not enough time considering us as individuals that have the potential of becoming very, very lonely when deprived of the ability to communicate. This lack of empathy dehumanizes the Peace Corps staff/volunteer relationship.

So, starting this week I will be spending one night away from site each week in order to take Q’eqchi classes. I really hope this helps me learn the language quickly. I can only take social isolation for so long. I’m not asking to become fluent; I only need to be able to express myself a little better.

There you have it, friends. Things are difficult right now, but I am doing my best to stay proactive and discover the best way to put myself in a position to serve this community. Stay tuned for next week’s post; I had one of those experiences that everyone who waits to become a Peace Corps Volunteer hopes for. I may very well learn more about these people than I can ever possibly teach them. Is it that a bad thing? I am still deciding. I am certain of one thing. This experience is already changing me, and I have only been in my site for 2 months and in Guatemala for almost 5 months. In the months and years to come, what you will read here will be the unadulterated tales of my Peace Corps experience, a combination of my story and the stories of the people in my community. My reader base has grown larger than I ever expected it would, and it makes me happy to know that my fears, frustrations, breakthroughs and successes are being appreciated by others. From my friends and family to the students and workers in my father’s school, thanks for taking the time to read what I have to say.

Don´t worry. I am a professional.

2010-05-04T12:25:00.004-04:00

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.

The Language Barrier

2010-04-27T13:00:00.004-04:00

I expected life in the Peace Corps to be difficult, but prior to coming to Guatemala, I frequently thought to myself It can’t be that hard. I’ve done some challenging things in my life. I will easily be able to handle it. I want to report that life in the Peace Corps CAN be that hard. Perhaps, when it comes down to it, I guess I didn’t know what to expect, but one thing is for certain. I never expected to be this lonely. I was placed in a tiny town of 300 people where 90% of the inhabitants do not speak Spanish, and each day is a struggle. I am trying to learn Q’eqchi as quickly as I can, but it is incredibly difficult. I believe that part of the Peace Corps training process should consist of Mayan language classes for those who are being sent to areas where it is absolutely essential that they learn a Mayan language. In that sense, pre-service training is flawed. I did, however, call my project specialist desperately asking for assistance, and she thinks that Peace Corps will be able to pay for me to take a week-long intensive course in a nearby city. I really hope that happens.

I realize that I will not be successful if I don’t at least become conversational in this language. Every single member of the junta directiva, or governing body, of the association that I am assigned to does not speak or read Spanish. This poses quite a challenge. If I intend to have any sort of professional or social life, I need to learn this language. I consider myself an outgoing person, but I am really struggling here. There are many times when I think about quitting, but I know I will never do that. See my Commitment to Service and Aspiration Statement for my reasons. The teacher I have in my town is not capable of answering any of my grammatical questions. He usually just laughs and tells me, “That’s just the way it is” every time I search for an answer to a question. It is incredibly frustrating, and I think I will need to find another teacher outside of my town. I really, really want to learn this language, and each day is spent using the new phrases I have learned and asking other people for additional words and phrases. They are eager to help me, but the process is painstakingly slow. I want to start speaking Q’eqchi so I can start to express myself, make true friends and have meaningful conversations. Wow, it is so lonely sometimes, but I need to keep pushing forward, one day at a time.

Here are some random thoughts:
• My host father’s last name, Chub, means saliva in Q’eqchi.
• Ironically, I taught the numbers 1-10 in Q’eqchi to a little girl the other day.
• They can’t afford diapers here, so the little kids in my family regularly shit their pants. It smells pretty bad. Maybe I can design a better system as one of my secondary projects.
• Everyone calls me Don Jordan, thus proving that I have at least earned some respect here.
• I found a scorpion next to my pillow the other day.
• I bathe with a bucket in the middle of the front yard, and talk to my family when they are 2 feet away from me.
• I can make the babies in my family stop crying.
• I am completely soaked with sweat all day long.
• I killed a flying beetle the size of a baseball the other day. At first, I thought it was a bat. The next night, a bat actually did get trapped in my room, preventing me from sleeping for several hours.

Peace Corps Guatemala or Peace Corps Nursery?

2010-04-19T13:06:00.008-04:00

At any given time of the day, there are one, two, three or four children crying in my house. Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala are required to live with a host family during the first 3 months of service, which is in addition to the mandatory 3 months with a host family during pre-service training. The rationale makes sense; some of us, myself included, live in tiny communities, and living with a host family is a great way to ease the assimilation process by facilitating the introduction to neighbors and the attendance of community events. The noise in the house is constant, and I am beginning to become accustomed to it, but I sometimes feel like I joined Peace Corps nursery( There are two babies crying at the time of writing). Most PC Volunteers, naturally, choose to move out of the host family house after three months in order to give themselves more privacy and a certain degree of autonomy.

This, unfortunately, is not the case for me. I live in such a small town that there are no other safe places for me to live, at least no places that I know of thus far. I was initially disappointed and frustrated with this predicament, but I am forcing myself to treat my dearth of options as a series of two-year games. Some of the games I play include, How Many Days Can I Eat Beans and Tortillas in a Row and How Many Goals Can I Score in One Soccer Outing. Free time activities are seriously lacking here, and my welcome packet even stated that the two typical ways to enjoy oneself in the town is by playing soccer and “enjoying nature.” Since, I live on the side of a main road, and I can only walk the one path to the caves so many times, soccer is how I pass my afternoons, so it is a good thing that I love to play the sport. My record number of goals scored is 5 in one afternoon, and I have become a local celebrity of sorts on the soccer pitch. Playing soccer is my primary confianza building activity, and it gives me a great opportunity to interact with the guys in my town.

Another favorite game of mine is the How Big Can My Beard Get Game. I bathe in the middle of my front yard with a bucket, and it is a challenge to shave regularly. I have solved this problem by choosing never to shave. Instead, I am going to return to olden times, and use scissors to trim my manly, jungle beard.

I view my living situation as a test of willpower. Each additional day here eases my tension, and I believe that if I can maintain my composure here, most situations in the future will hardly seem challenging. The cast of characters in my abode includes the following: Don Santiago(host father), Dona Paulina(host mother who is frequently topless when I talk to her, because she is constantly breastfeeding), Tuco(3), newborn baby(3 months), Joseline Lucrecia(1.5), Julio(5), Efrain(10 or 11), Marta(7 or 8), Martin(21, father of Joseline), Marta(mother of Joseline and wife of Martin), Mystery woman who I believe is Martin’s sister(appears to be in her 20s and it is surprising that she is not married yet, as most girls have children at 14 or 15 years old)

So, there you have it. There are 11 other people in this small house, which consists of a room in the front of the house(my room used to be part of this common room until Peace Corps required that Don Santiago nail up some boards to separate the two), a kitchen, and Don Santiago’s room. There are 5 people who sleep in the front room, 4 who sleep in the kitchen, and Don Santiago and Dona Paulina sleep in their room, although I have seen children simply crash down onto beds like they have fallen victim to narcolepsy, thus forcing others to sleep wherever there is an open bed, which can be more accurately described as a wooden table.

I find myself repeatedly suffering moral dilemmas, as I watch my family members sleeping on incredibly uncomfortable wooden slates, jammed into small rooms. It was difficult for me to decide to buy a regular mattress and a fan for my room, because everyone else has nothing. I wrestled with the idea for weeks, but I eventually decided that I needed those two comfort items. Peace Corps allots us a settling-in allowance to buy everything we need for our rooms, and I am prepared to sacrifice and live to the standards of those around me in my community, but I could not adjust to sleeping on a wooden slab and the oppressive waves of heat in my boxed-in room. Indeed, I have barely used any of my settling-in allowance.

Although the house is overcrowded with people, it is comforting to have that family presence here. Everyone has taken a liking to me, and I enjoy their company, even if most of the time is spent listening to them speak Qeqchi’, struggling to discern what they are saying and straining to recognize just one single word. The children, albeit loud, have their endearing qualities, and I love seeing how happy they are as they gallop around the house. Plus, they make for some funny moments. Nowhere else can I look outside my door and see Tuco, the 3 year-old streaking past naked chasing 2 chickens and a duck, only to trip on a rock, crash down face-first into the mud, and then laugh and keep running. Then, I look past Tuco, and I see my substantially overweight topless mother walk past. I still haven’t gotten used to that. Man, life is a hoot sometimes.

Some of you have asked, Jordan, what do you eat in your town? Well, not much. Families do not have much money here, and everyone farms for their food. Typically I eat beans, soup, eggs, rice, more beans, and, very rarely, a piece of meat. You might be saying, “Meat! Wow, what a delicacy for you!” Au contraire, my friends. Everything is boiled, so every piece of meat takes 20+ minutes to chew. The Chew the Meat game is not in my Top 5 list of games. The lack of food would be a serious issue if it were not for the abundance of tortillas during every meal. Tortillas are served during all three meals in Guatemala, and when I can’t fill myself up on the other food, I devour tortillas. I’ve been known to throw back 8 or 9 massive tortillas at one time. To give you an idea of the importance of tortillas to the Mayans, the world for tortilla, “wa” can be found in the verb “to eat,” which is “wa’ak.” Cool stuff.

The women spend most of the day in the kitchen, where they cook over an open fire, unfortunately inhaling massive quantities of smoke on a daily basis. One of my secondary project ideas is to construct stoves that direct the smoke away from the women in the town and through the ceilings of their houses.

That’s my living situation in a nutshell. Can you picture it? Joseline, the 1 and a half year old, is telling me something. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Maybe she’s yelling for a tortilla.

The kitchen
This is what surrounds the main road that I live on
The scorpion that I accidentally stepped on while walking near my bed
And here´s seven of the eleven who live in the house

The Importance of Taking Initiative

2010-04-13T13:24:00.005-04:00

I have been living in my tiny 30-house town for 2 weeks now. It is difficult to explain just how different my life has become, but I will try to do it the best way I know how; through examples. The pace here is a stark contrast to life in the United States. It brings back memories of my time in Ghana. There, one of my friends called it GMT, or Ghanaian Maybe Time. Here, it’s called la hora chapina, or the Guatemalan hour. Everything seems to take longer. I’ve wanted to set up a meeting to meet the 18 tour guides that work in the caves for about a week and a half now, but, despite warm receptions of the idea, the meeting is always postponed.

Through various conversations with some of the guides, I have noticed a prevailing desire to come together as a group and toss around ideas and, above all else, a particularly strong interest to learn English. It’s really encouraging to see how eager the guides are to learn English, and this will undoubtedly keep me motivated to learn Q’eqchi, the language that will unlock the world of the ancient Mayans and actually allow me to have any sort of social life in my town. Like giddy little children, some of the tour guides relish in the opportunity to practice their basic English, which usually only consists of key tour guide phrases. Here’s a sample of a normal conversation.

Giddy Guide: Good morning (in the middle of the afternoon)
Me: Haha. Good Morning. It’s actually---
GG: Welcome in the caves.
Me: Haha very nice, but it would be better to say, “Welcome to the caves.”
GG: No smoking.
Me: Nice.

However, these enriching conversations don’t just happen of their own volition. I want to emphasize the importance of doing stuff, for lack of better words. My town is very small and very boring. There are 30 to 40 houses that pepper the sides of a paved road. Sprinkled in there is also a parking lot with a visitor hut, bathrooms, a comedor, and a hospedaje, which can fit up to 15 tourists. During Semana Santa, the parking lot was teeming with tourists. Now, it’s teeming with absolutely nothing. There are only so many times that a man can walk back and forth from his house to the parking lot. Often times, I would like nothing more than to escape the punishing sun beams and stay inside my room reading a book. However, I know that I am not in Read a Book Corps, and I force myself to do something; to simply wander. So, I wander. Usually at the beginning of my wanderings, a thought dances through my head. What the hell am I doing here? foxtrots its way through my brain. Yet, at the end of that particular wandering, I contemplate on what I just did, and repeatedly find myself thinking, Well, I am glad that I did that. Let me tell you why.

One day, as I was sitting in my wooden chair in a puddle of sweat from the 90 plus degree heat, I decided to meander over to ye old parking lot and see if there was anyone sitting on the benches there, knowing very well that I most likely would not be able to communicate with whomever I may find. Misery loves company, right? Or was it, let’s all be bored together? Either way, I wanted to find a partner to share in some quality boredom time. What I found was a Guatemalan family standing on the path that leads to the caves. A new friend, one of the park guards, asked if I wanted to join them in a Mayan ceremony. Hell yes. My mind danced away and did a jubilant little pirouette. I started off on the walk to one of the caves; a cave I had not yet visited. Apparently we were heading to the cave used for ceremonies such as the one this family wished to perform. My host dad, who is also a park guard, joined us later on in our journey to the ceremonial cave. What happened next is one of the most bizarre and intriguing experiences that I have ever had.

We crept through the pitch black cave with flashlights to guide us. We then approached a fire pit and circled it 3 times. I later learned that this is done at the beginning and end of the ceremony to call on the support of the Mayan ancestors. As we solemnly circled the pit, I realized that I would be a participant in this ceremony and not just an observer. Soon a woman drew a design in the fire pit with chalk. Next, another woman arranged a pyramid of candles on top of twigs. Then, a man lit the candles, and the fire ignited and flames burst forth. The ceremony continued with 4 individuals, 3 women and 1 man, chanting in Q’eqchi. As the candles melted and the flames reached the twigs, the fire began to grow. The chanting grew louder, and from time to time, one of the women would circle the fire and stir the flames. I stood mesmerized as the flames swirled and danced, the cave slowly becoming brighter and hotter. At one point I turned around and looked behind me. Painted on the walls were our shadows illuminated by the fire. They loomed ominously, watching over us as if they were standing guard; as if the fire could leap up at any instant, and they needed to be ready to smother it.

Throughout the ceremony, we were required to drink alcohol, purportedly to give strength to the participants, and smoke cigars. Towards the end of the peculiar experience, one of the women moved towards a small child who seemed to be her daughter. I grew puzzled, as I saw the girl’s eyes widen with fear. The woman picked up the child and carried her to the fire. For a few agonizing seconds, she held the girl mere inches from the fire. The flames licked her clothing and extended limbs. Gripping her tightly, the woman placed her daughter down next to the raging fire and took a gulp of the alcohol. She then proceeded to spit the alcohol all over the girl in a great cloud of mist. This shocking behavior was later explained to me as a way to ask for wisdom and protection for this young girl during her formative years.

As the ceremony came to a close, the chanting reached a climax, and everyone began to sob. One by one we embraced each other and offered consoling words. The ritual was an attempt to speak to the Mayan ancestors, who possess sage advice and the secret to the land and life’s hardships. It was a deeply personal experience for these people, and I was astonished that they allowed me to participate in it with them. The last person to hug me was a middle-aged woman. She leaned in close and whispered, “Tiene dueños.” This translates to, “You have owners.” I interpreted this to mean that I have ancestors looking out for me. I am not a religious person, but, at the time, this statement seemed to possess an eerie truth.

I emerged from that cave as if emerging from a dream. One of the women turned to me and remarked, “The ancestors heard us. It rained while we were in the cave and helped the plants.” I looked around. It had, in fact, rained while we were performing the ceremony. I found that quite odd, as it had not rained once since I had arrived to my site. A mere coincidence? Who knows? And to think, I contemplated, I was going to stay in my room and read a book.

To briefly mention another time where I decided to take the initiative to explore my surroundings, I ended up running into two men from nearby tourism organizations, who happened to be here visiting my site. They said that they had heard there was a new Volunteer here and had wanted to talk to me. We talked for a while, and I took advantage of the time to exchange contact information and promise that I would stop by their offices in the future to continue our conversation about collaboration and mutual understanding for the years that I would be in Guatemala. Simply put, this initial contact would not have been made if I stayed in my room and pondered the challenging circumstances of my site.

So my plea to you is this. If there is something you are dwelling upon and don’t see the point in wasting your time by taking action, take action. Life isn’t about acting when the outcome is already known. Leave that for the inputs and outputs of machines. Life is about wandering down an unknown path and smiling when you realize where you have wandered. Thanks for wandering with me.

There are a lot of of kids in my family
My host family´s house
Entrance to the cave for the water tour
David on the left and Santiago, who is my host dad, on the right. They are park guards.

Settling In or Unsettled

2010-04-06T13:35:00.004-04:00

My life changed significantly a couple days ago, but before I get to that, let me give you a review of the events of the past week. On March 25^th 45 trainees were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. The ceremony at a hotel in Antigua was the culmination of months of hard work. What made the event even better was that every single person who stepped off the plane in Guatemala City on January 6th said the oath in front of the Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. embassy. Making it through the training period without a single early termination is a rare feat, and I am proud of this group.

The ceremony consisted of speeches by my training director, the country director, a representative from the Consejo Nacional de Areas Protegidas, the Deputy Chief of Mission, or 2^nd in command at the embassy, and a trainee nominated by our group. Two members of each trainee’s host family were allowed to attend. My host mother, Dona Estela, was the only one in attendance from my family.

The oath consisted of all of the trainees raising their right hands and stating an oath identical to the one that public officials need to make when they enter office. We promised to uphold the US Constitution and protect it from enemies, both foreign and domestic. It was a very emotional moment for me as I thought about my responsibility to be a representative of the United States and general bringer of benevolence towards those I encounter on my journey.

After the ceremony ended, I took advantage of the opportunity to speak with the Deputy Chief of Mission. Speaking with him and listening to another speaker from the Foreign Service provided to us by Peace Corps the prior week renewed my interest in one day possibly becoming a diplomat.

The following two days were spent in Antigua enjoying my first opportunity to stay out after dark. After feeling like I was in the United States again for 2 days, reality rose its right hand and smacked me in the face, for it makes my head spin to tell you how great the discrepancies are between my new home and Antigua. I think I have to be in one of the poorest areas of Peace Corps Guatemala. Everyone thinks of the ultimate Peace Corps experience, roughing it an unknown land with only the bare necessities. Well, that’s what I got, and to be quite honest, I am very overwhelmed.

I want to be careful to not come across as a complainer, but this is the farthest out of my comfort zone I have ever been. My room is made out of wooden boards and a tin roof. My bed is a wooden table with what is essentially a large comforter laid on top of it. I felt bad buying this pseudo-comforter because everyone in my new host family –there are 11 who live here(I think)- sleeps directly on the wood. It still feels like I am sleeping on wood. The children range from a 1 month old, who is constantly crying, to my 21-year old counterpart. The older children are very sweet and curious, constantly smiling and skipping around. It is encouraging to see how happy they are with the little that they have. I have yet to see some of them change their clothes in the couple of days that I have been here.

The first night was very difficult for me. There are literally tarantulas in my room. No, I am not exaggerating. Huge, furry tarantulas the size of my hand. I spent the first night on the wooden board quivering in fear under my mosquito net. Since I didn’t have rope to tie my net up that first night, I wrapped it around my body like my life depended on becoming a deceased King Tut. After the first 3 months at site, Peace Corps Volunteers in Guatemala are allowed to look for their own place. I, unfortunately, don’t have that option. There are no houses available, and any other room I could find would be in extremely impoverished conditions, complete with a dirt floor and probably more bugs.

If the living situation were not enough, try integrating into a new community when you and other people are trying to communicate with a language that is both your second language. Add to that the fact that 90% of the town, including every single community leader of the association I have been assigned to, don’t speak that language, but speak a Mayan language, and you have yourself in a bit of a pickle. Constantly trying to be culturally sensitive while struggling to express myself to people who don’t understand what I am saying is incredibly exhausting. Thankfully my counterparts and my host father speak Spanish and have been very helpful and understanding. I need to learn Q’eqchi as quickly as possible, or I am going to be very, very lonely and very, very isolated for a long time.

Of the mas o menos 11 people who live in this house, my conversation with an older daughter of the family went something like this:

Me: “Hi. “

Daughter: “Hi.”

Me: I’m Jordan, it’s nice to meet you.”

Daughter: blank stare

Me: Do you speak any Spanish?

Her: blank stare

Me: “Well, in 3 months, when I know some Q’echí, let’s have a chat.

The awkward moments have been numerous. Good thing I like awkward moments. For instance, an older man from the village came to my room late one of the first nights. I took this as a very good sign, since it is a bit difficult to get the older folks of the village to open up to me. He knocked on my door and remarked, “Oh, so this is your room.” Oh good, I thought, he speaks Spanish. I went through the typical introduction and received the typical blank stare.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I kept it simple and said, “Where do you live?”

“I live there,” he said as he pointed down the road.

“Oh, down there? On the left hand side?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. Ummmmmmmm.”

“I am going to sleep,” he exclaimed, making a pillow out of his hands and smiling.

I returned the smile and replied, “I like to sleep. Good night.”

“Good night.”

As for the work aspect of my life, it appears I will have plenty to do to keep myself busy. There are a myriad of work areas to delve into, such as training the tour guides, who give tours of the 2 dry caves and 1 aquatic cave in the area, developing a trash management system and raising awareness about the importance of recycling garbage, and improving business processes and cash management, to name a few. The caves themselves are absolutely breathtaking, and it is makes me happy to think that exploring their cavernous depths is just part of my job.

I assume I will come to explore the cavernous depths of my mind and being over these next 2 years, as well. I am sure that I will be challenged in countless ways as I struggle to integrate into the community. The path won’t be easy, but it is important to remember that it is the rocky, rugged paths that make the best climbers.

A medium-sized spider in my room
Where I shower in my front yard
Where no magic happens
Rustic
Home sweet home, most likely for the next 2 years

Yum

Come visit me?

A Drastic Change

2010-03-31T14:42:00.002-04:00

To all of my followers,

I moved to my site on Sunday morning. This is going to be a challenge. The living conditions are very difficult here. This is a very poor area, and there is very little to go around. I am going to need your support more than ever. Quitting will never be an option, because I do not want to let down this community that has welcomed me with open arms. Expect a more detailed post later. I hope you all are happy and healthy wherever you are. Always, always be thankful for what you have.

-JBrown

My Commitment to Service

2010-03-24T18:13:00.005-04:00

Yesterday we had a common session at the Peace Corps headquarters, which ended with a moving activity called Commitment to Service. Anyone who felt inclined to do so could offer their feelings on why they are committed to serving for 2 years in Guatemala. It was an hour laden with heavy motions, and I feel lucky to be part of such a great group of people. 45 of us started this training process, and 45 of us will be swearing in tomorrow during a ceremoy where we will be declared official Peace Corps Volunteers. It is rare for a training group to stay intact, and I believe our success in making it through these 3 months without losing anyone speaks to our dedication, perseverance and cohesiveness as a group. I am proud of my friends, this new family that I have come to love. Here is a written version similar to what I shared with my training group.

During my 2 trips to the hospital, I had a lot of time to think about my experience here in Guatemala thus far and my hopes for the future. Both times, I received a tremendous amount of support from concerned friends and visits and phone calls from my host family. It got me to thinking about the fact that people who didn’t know that I existed 3 months ago took the time to ask me how I was feeling, ask if I had any news, and, in general, try to lift my spirits.

I remember as I was leaving for the hospital the first time, sitting in the passenger seat waiting for Gregorio, our training director, to get into the van, I saw my host brothers. They were standing outside waving goodbye, and I will never forget the looks on their faces. The looks were of sheer terror and fear. I could barely stand to keep my eyes on them because of how unbelievably scared they looked.

Later on, after I returned to the house, my brothers came into my room. They told me that the last few days had been terrible because there had been no laughter like usual during mealtimes. Moreover, my host mother Doña Estela told me the next day that she and the boys had cried during dinner because of what had happened to me.
It was at that point that it really hit me. There are people here who truly care about me and who I really care about as well.

I may have come here of my own volition. I may have come here because I wanted to do something. Because I wanted to have an adventure. Because I wanted to have more experiences. Because I wanted to teach and learn from others, but I realize that I am staying here for others. I realize that the relationships I have built are based on real, human emotions, and that if I were to leave, to quit, I would not only let myself down, but I would let down my host brothers, my host parents, and my friends and staff in the Peace Corps. Quite frankly, I would let down everyone. And I know that I cannot quit on my new community.

I equate it to dealing with a child. Children know when they are being tricked and being treated unfairly. If you turn your back on a child, you seldom get a second chance. I know the same goes for my community. If I turn my back on them, there is no second chance. There is no do-over. No mulligan(that one’s for you, Tiger Woods). There is no coming back in a year when you feel that you are ready to adapt to a new culture. I know that I will not quit unless I have a DAMN good reason. To leave early would be a proverbial slap in the face to my community and to everyone whom I have grown close to. So, I am committed to the people I have met and the people I will continue to meet. I am committed to people. Replace the word, “people” with “service,” and, really, it means the same thing.

Friends at the pools in my training town(I´m the really good looking one in the back)

Some of my friends came to Guatemala City to deliver my site assignment.

The Peace Corps Family

2010-03-14T18:12:00.002-04:00

Throughout my life, during times of great change, times where I have found myself uprooted and planted elsewhere, grasping for new soil, homes and identities, I have often wondered prior to the change: will I find friends when I get there? Will they be good people? After moving 6 hours away for college; after studying abroad in Mexico; after living for 2 months in Ghana and, finally, after joining the Peace Corps, time and time again, I have found not only friends, but families.

Peace Corps pre-service training is an unforgettable experience. Individuals from all over the United States, who most likely never would have crossed paths, are flown to a foreign country and thrown into a massive cultural blender and told to blend, or else. The process, though at times harrowing, is undeniably enriching. You are going through an experience that no one else in the world, at that time, is going through. You call home and tell your parents. You e-mail your friends in the states and tell them all about your latest adventures. Your family and friends, though, can’t really understand. The only ones who can truly understand you are your friends in the Peace Corps, and especially those in your training class. Only they are by your side, simultaneously experiencing the beauty of a new language and country and the frustrations and failures that come with the assimilation process.

Recently, there was a bit of a bump in the new road upon which I am traveling. On Wednesday I started to feel ill. On Thursday the pain got worse, and I was in agony during a training group visit to Guatemala City. Thursday night, the pain intensified even more and intense nausea coupled with excruciating pain in my stomach and the lower right side of my back caused my host mother to call the Peace Corps Medical Officer. My medical officer suspected that I had appendicitis and quickly arranged to transport me to a hospital. I am impressed with the speed and efficiency that Peace Corps transported me to trusted facilities in Guatemala City, the capital of the country.

I have now spent 2 nights in the hospital, and while I am no stranger to being very sick in an unknown place, it is always nice to receive support from others. That support has come from many; from fellow trainees; from the host sisters of other host families, from my own family back home and from Peace Corps staff. Just now I received this text message from a friend. “How was your day? Any news? When will you be released? How is the pain level? We miss you.” Truth be told, that made my day.

But soon, my friends will not be so near. Training is coming to an end. Friday was site assignment day, which I unfortunately missed due to being in the hospital. Of course I was disappointed at the cruel timing of my illness and how it prevented me from being blindfolded and placed on a map of Guatemala like the rest of my friends, but I had to keep telling myself that my health was much more important than the manner in which I found out my site.
The guys from my training town came to visit me in the hospital and give me my folder with all of my site info. This whole Peace Corps thing? Well, it just got a little more real. For security reasons, I am not allowed to disclose the exact location of my site, but I will share some of the details. I will be heading into northern Alta Verapaz, a department north of the capital and 2 hours north of Coban, the department capital. My town has a whopping 300 people, 90% of whom DO NOT SPEAK SPANISH. Therefore, it looks like I will be one of the only ones in my training group who will not only be required to learn a Mayan language, but will be required to know it extremely well.

This is going to be an unbelievably exciting challenge. Yet, I would be lying if I denied how daunting this all seems. I already have an advanced Spanish level – and this may be a big reason why I am being urged to learn yet another language – but I sense I will need to give up my dream of becoming fluent in Spanish by the time I leave Guate.

Throughout training I had the chance to learn from current Volunteers. Two pieces of advice stuck with me in respect to learning languages. Those who were placed in areas where a Mayan language was the predominant language offered salient advice. Some said, “Learning a Mayan language was the most important decision that I made during my 2 years of service.”
Others said, “Not learning a Mayan language has been one of my biggest regrets.” Thus, it appears that if I want to truly integrate into my tiny community, I need to learn their language, and I am willing to commit to that.

In addition, the work opportunities at my site sound incredible. I am working with an association to promote the caves located in the town. Here’s a question for my potential visitors. Have you ever wanted to float through caves on a tube while holding a candle to guide you? Because you can do that at my site. Unbelievable.

I leave for a 6-day site visit on Tuesday morning. After that I return to my training site for a week in order to make some final arrangements, and then I am off to my site for good. Wow. My stomach hurts. Is that the aftermath of food poisoning, or did life just give me a great roundhouse kick? It’s about to begin. Let’s do this.

You are not your job.

2010-02-28T11:28:00.004-05:00

I’ve had a recurring thought lately; separated from the countless luxuries and distractions in the United States, I am happier than I have been in a long time. As busy as we supposedly are as Peace Corps Trainees, on a whole, I am extremely content with my position in life. I have an unexplainable feeling that I made the right choice to join Peace Corps.

I enjoyed so much greeting everyone I saw when I was living in Ghana, and it so nice to have that again. Sure, there are annoyances, as there are in all places. For instance, sometimes the lack of privacy afforded to me by my host brothers annoys me to no end, but, after all, they are kids. Sometimes it is frustrating forcing oneself into an unknown culture, but who ever wanted to live without challenges?

For much of my life, I have constantly worried and overanalyzed situations. Distraught with anxiety, I could never seem to turn my brain off. It bothered me terribly, and often kept me from falling asleep at night. After living in West Africa for 2 months, I started to relax a bit. Later on, I had conversations with a good friend about techniques to help me sleep and narrow my thoughts. I learned more from talking to a new friend here in the Peace Corps, who later loaned me a book about staying present in the moment. Heeding their advice, I feel much more at ease.

More than anything, when I travel to other countries, I feel centered, and that is how I feel here in Guatemala. Too often in the U.S., I get caught up in the way of thinking that the more I can achieve, the better off I will be. It’s more about where I am going, and not the means I am taking to get there.

Much attention is given to making small talk in Guatemala. At first, it seems pointless. Seemingly, nothing gets done when talking about the weather for an interminable amount of time. But then there comes the realization that there is more to it than that. Sitting in the dim light of a crackling fire, talking to the women of a nearby tortilla shop about trivial anecdotes, I know I am learning something. I know, because I can feel it. Of course the technical training that I am receiving is very useful, but while on the job, if I ever have doubts, I can always look up an answer in a manual or other resource available to me. The manual on integration, acceptance and understanding is much harder to find. You may not be your job or the clothing that you wear, but I truly believe you are your experiences, through and through.

Field-Based Training and the Eternal Journey to Build Confianza

2010-02-23T08:14:00.004-05:00

What an exhausting week. Yesterday my group of 18, all sustainable community tourism, or ecotourism, volunteers returned from field-based training. We left last Sunday and spent the week during what was prefaced as an intense training and evaluative process. Upon its completion, I think the general consensus of the week was that, although it was interesting to travel around the country and learn from current PCVs, the training was seriously lacking in the field-based aspect and was favored a bit too heavily on the sitting through boring charlas(talks) aspect. I mean, realmente, instead of traveling 6 hours, we could have done that in any room nearby.

The first day and night was spent visiting a PCV, Tony, who oversees the business processes of a nature tourism site. Next, we moved on to a small town in the middle of nowhere, outside of Coban, the capital of Alta Verapaz. It has been repeated over and over to us, and it is a common topic amongst ourselves; we have one of the best programs not only in PC Guatemala, but in PC as a whole. As ecotourism volunteers, we are guaranteed to live in amazing locations, since it has to be something that tourists would want to visit. In addition to that, our project allows a substantial amount of freedom, since anything related to nature, business, trash management, environmental education, etc. falls under the purview of our program. That is so incredibly liberating and invigorating.

Returning to the primary site of field-based training, the beauty of the place where we stayed is hard to describe. It seemed to have magical qualities, it being eternally tranquil. I was surprised to learn that only 800 people live there, and doubly surprised to learn that one of us would be calling this town home in March. We spent the week in two cabins, one for the men and one for the women. Behind the cabins were two lagoons, where one could see fog rolling and swirling over the murky water during the mornings. Resting peacefully in a valley, the town is surrounded by a luscious green wonderland. Vibrant forests stand tall around the tiny village, as if standing guard over this tiny jewel tucked away in the Verapaces of Guatemala.

Even more refreshing than the natural beauty of this town was the incredibly warm reception that we received from its endearing town members and leaders. The president of the town cooperative immediately came up to me after a welcoming ceremony, looked at my cowboy hat, and told me that in order to be a puro vaquero (pure cowboy), they would need to get me a horse. I know what you are thinking. Jordan, a goofy guy from upstate New York rocks a cowboy hat now? Let me explain.

In my undying effort to become a true Guatemalan and build as much confianza as possible, I have purchased at the nearby market what I like to call “confianza shirts.” A confianza shirt is difficult to describe, but it can be explained as a short-sleeve button down shirt that has checkered patterns on it and looks particularly awesome when working in the fields or strolling through the streets. I recently have added a white cowboy hat that I received as a gift from my host mother to my confianza-building outfit. My goal is to, upon arriving at site, buy a machete – apparently you can get one for about 40Q - and go out into the fields during the first couple of months with farmers and simply help with their work. A recurring piece of advice that I have received from Volunteers is to help people with whatever they are doing. If people ask you to help them, you do it. The respect and trust that you earn doing so will be vital when promoting future projects.

I seem to be blending in nicely so far. Here is an example. A bunch of us were standing around, and a Guatemalan man approached. He comes up to me, gives me a handshake, and then walks past everyone else. A current Volunteer remarked, “What? Why only you? Oh……….your hat.” We both started laughing. Thank you confianza hat.
In addition to learning about such things as doing work on trails and using routers to make signs, we also had time allotted to individually meet with our Assistant Peace Corps Director. The purpose of the interview was to discuss what kind of sites we want. I entered the room with Flavio, my jovial APCD sitting in a chair directly across from another one. I’ll admit that I was slightly uneasy entering the room and more uneasy still as I exited. Prior to the interview, we had to fill out questionnaire that asked us if we preferred warm or cold weather, small or large towns, if we want to be a first generation Volunteer or not, special skills we wanted to use at our sites, etc. It was a struggle for me to fill out because my primary concern is being useful and effective in my site. I don’t want to ask for a warm site if it has the possibility of taking me out of the running for a site that could be a perfect match for my skills. I know that I am here to work, and I feel selfish putting my interests over the needs of my future community.

Thus, the interview didn’t go too smoothly. I wasn’t able to decide on anything, and I could tell my APCD was growing impatient. He asked me to decide on what would be the most important thing for me if I could have anything in a site. I truthfully replied that I only want to be in a place where my skills can best be put to use, but he insisted that I decide on something. Together, we finally concluded that, above everything, I would like to put my business skills to use in a historical/cultural tourism site, as opposed to a nature tourism site. I feel like my skills would lend better towards working with guides and conversing with others rather than trail maintenance. I got the feeling during the interview that he already knew where he wanted to place me, and he only tried to twist my words in such a way to convince me that I would be happy wherever he put me. My friends echoed this sentiment after they came out of their interviews. I was able to extract more information than others seemed to, however. The APCD told me that he was impressed by my business skills and I would be guaranteed to be at a developed site, working on the business side of things. He also seemed interested in my desire to learn a Mayan language, so hopefully I get that opportunity.

March 12th is site placement today, and I’m counting down the days until we find out where we will spend the next 2 years. This has been a great ride so far, and I don’t want it to end. I’m having a great time learning and teaching, sharing and discovering. I’m finding my way, but I’m also taking the time to get lost, because it’s only by getting lost that we ultimately know where we are going.

***I had hoped to upload pictures along with this post, but the connection is terrible here at headquarters. Check back for pictures later.***