Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Changed Forever


            So, the news is out.  After months of debating, thinking, drinking, and soul-searching, I’ve decided to resign from the Peace Corps and move home.

            It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

            I think I spent about three days lying on my back in my bed, staring at the straw ceiling and anticipating every regret that I would have.  Between classes, I made pro/con lists and evaluated them.  I applied for several jobs to see if an opportunity would fall into my lap.  I asked for advice from at least seven or eight people and thought and rethought what they recommended to me. 

But a string of unfortunate events within my last three weeks led me to conclude that I had made the right decision, and I couldn’t be happier with where I am now.  

Over the course of the fifteen months that I served in Peace Corps, I realized that the work I was doing was not leading me down the path I had hoped it would.  I always wanted to go into development work, or join a non-profit organization, or maybe even keep teaching abroad.  I love living abroad and experiencing new things.  I love the feeling of adventure while you’re hitchhiking in the back of a pickup truck down a winding African dirt road.  At times, I lived that ideal image of Peace Corps life that many people see in advertisements or Facebook photos. 

But I didn’t join the Peace Corps to drink with Americans and backpack around southern Africa every weekend, however “romantic” that may sound.  I joined to make a difference in the world and to be a volunteer.  I soon became very jaded with the idea of development work, especially with the Peace Corps and especially in Lesotho.  That’s not to say that there are many volunteers doing amazing projects and positively impacting their schools every day.  I loved my school, and my students, and my teachers, and my principal.  They showed me love and acceptance like I’ve never seen before.  But I didn’t feel that the work I was doing was sustainable.  Five, ten years down the road from now, what kind of legacy would I leave behind, besides some great stories and a crumbling house?

For a succession of days, which turned into months, I woke up unenthusiastic about the day ahead of me.  I was lacking the passion that I had when I first joined Peace Corps.  I wasn’t excited about anything.  After feeling like this for too long, you have to make a change.  I realized that it wasn’t worth dragging myself through two years of melancholy, just to say I had completed two full years or just to be tough or to “build character”.

By no means does this mean that my decision was easy.  Remaining quietly in misery to protect your pride is much easier than throwing in the towel and calling it quits early.  More than anything, I was afraid of what other people would think.  And saying goodbye to my American and Basotho friends was one of the hardest things to do. 

But in the end, I made the decision that was right for me.  I will forever be grateful for the time I spent in Lesotho.  I’ve become a much better person because of it.  I am more patient, whether it be waiting in lines or talking with people that I don’t much care for.  I learned to be generous, because all good things are much better when they are shared.  I think twice when I see someone who is different from everyone else, because I know now what it’s like to stand out in a crowd.  I’m appreciative of everything that we were blessed with in America, just because we were born into wealthier circumstances.  And I’ve learned how important it is to cherish your family and friends—in America, Lesotho, or anywhere in the world—because in a lot of places, life is cut short much too quickly. 

I would highly recommend to everyone to join the Peace Corps, or at least to donate some time and work by volunteering in a place where the people are less fortunate than you.  You will learn more than you could ever imagine.  You will be changed forever.  

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

remember those who have nothing to eat

            We eat lunch at school every day at the same time—11a.m., right after math class. 
The rotating menu is also the same every week:  maize meal and fried cabbage Monday, beans and bread Tuesday, maize meal, fried cabbage and an egg Wednesday, samp and beans Thursday, and maize meal and milk Friday.  The students bring their own plastic lunch boxes from home, and they take turns lining up by class, youngest to oldest, to be served their food. 
Before dismissing the students for lunch, they all stand at their desks, fold their arms, close their eyes, and pray.  The prayer is the same every week.
“Oh Lord, thank you for the food that we are going to eat.  Remember those who have nothing to eat.  Amen.”
My breath catches in my throat every time they say it.  Some of these kids come to school just for the free food that the Ministry of Education provides.  They are the ones who have nothing to eat.  They live all day, every day on that one free meal they get at school. 
But they still remember to pray for those who have even less.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

My home away from home

            It’s strange to think that Christmas is just around the corner, and yet I’m spending my free time sneaking behind my hut in shorts to tan my toothpaste-white thighs in the afternoon sun.  I’m usually in my prime during the American holiday season—cooking, baking, wrapping presents, sitting by the fire—but  here it’s too hot to bake anything, let alone dozens of Christmas cookies and trays of peanut brittle. 
            For the first time in my life, I’m not feeling the holiday spirit.  Not at all.  Instead, I’m feeling a long day by the pool with a water-bottle filled with margarita mix.  It’s summer.
            I finished my first year of teaching last week!  The school decided to throw an end-of-year party to celebrate, and I was told to be at school at 8 a.m. sharp.  For some reason, my teachers are always worried about putting me to work and making me tired (why they think I need so much rest, I’ll never know), so while they ran around frantically cooking meat in pots over fires and setting up chairs in our school hall, I sat at a table in the corner and played games on my Blackberry.
            After what seemed like hours of senseless “organizing”, the students finally filed into the hall and formed their choir in the front of the room.  They sang a few of the hymns they regularly sing before school starts in the morning, and parents began congregating in the back and settling down in their chairs.  But a couple of songs in, I started noticing something.  I felt strangely like I recognized the songs that they were singing, even though the words were all in Sesotho.
            And so I started to listen closely, and it suddenly hit me.  They were singing about me. 
            They had changed their standard songs to fit my name somewhere in the middle.  They were all looking at me, swaying back and forth and making their usual choir-hand movements, and they were smiling.  And before I knew it, they had finished singing and the principal was standing up in front of the audience and giving a speech entirely in Sesotho.  After she finished, she turned to me and explained that they wanted to thank me for all the hard work I had done this year with the students.  She said that she knew it would be difficult to be so far away from home during the holidays, and so the school wanted to show their appreciation and love for me by throwing a party.
            All classes, first through seventh grade, then took turns standing in front of the crowd and reading cards that they had written.  The first graders wrote “Merry Christmars” on all of their cards.  Third grade wrote a letter in Sesotho, and my teacher later translated it to say “Thank God, for we are so blessed.  The sun is shining from America!  Neo Lehloenya is a child of Mahloenyeng; Hannah Campbell is a child of Theresa James School.”  My best student in seventh grade recited a beautiful poem in English, which elicited a standing ovation from the parents. 
            Towards the end of the ceremony, the school staff asked me to come to the middle of the stage and stand in front of the choir.    My principal began another speech explaining that she was sure that it was hard for me to come to Lesotho when I knew nothing about what I was getting in to.  She knew that I would miss my family and friends, and that I might not even like my new home, but some unknown, subconscious drive kept pushing me to go.  And then she said that that special “calling” was her prayers; she had been asking God for so long to help her school.   And I came along.
Suddenly, they started singing an absolutely beautiful song which I first learned when I arrived in Lesotho, during Peace Corps training.  It’s a song to thank someone; the words say something like “thank you, thank you; we’ve waited for this day for so long”.
My students’ mothers began slowly making their way towards me from the back of the room, dancing in a single-file line.  They were all holding gifts, and as they approached me, they smiled and put the gifts down at my feet.  My teachers and principal came out from nowhere carrying one of the biggest boxes I’ve ever seen and put it down in the middle of the room, along with the other gifts.  Of course, I was sobbing and smiling and dancing and singing the entire time.
After the ceremony, we sat down for a huge feast.  We ate chicken, rice with a spicy tomato sauce, carrot salad with raisins, beans, and Jello and cookies for dessert.  We even rented a sound system, and my seventh grade girls and I danced and shouted until I lost my voice. 
Traveling home that evening in a taxi, I found myself smiling.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  I was absolutely exhausted, but felt more content than I have in a long time.  I felt loved.  I’ve never before been shown so much acceptance and compassion and love as I have by my tiny, poor little school in Matsieng.  Here are people who have nothing, yet they put together what little resources and funds they had in order to make me feel at home when they knew I was lonely around Christmas. 
Before we all left, I made a short speech to thank everyone for what they had done for me that afternoon.  I said that although they were thanking me for all of the measurable change I had brought to their school and their students, the biggest change was what they had given me. 
They have completely changed me as a person.  I’ve become more patient, sharing, accepting, and humble.  I appreciate so many things that I otherwise would never have noticed.  I’ve slowed down my life and thought about what is really important.  I have changed inexplicably more than what I could ever do for these people here.  I don’t think they quite understood what I meant.  But it made me secretly smile inside.