This is going to be a short entry and by short I mean kinda short. Shorter than before. It’s been a struggle to write this entry, even though I have been thinking about it. I have come to the point where my brain is a muddled pile of goo. I can’t think in either Spanish or English. I was in fact yelled at twice for speaking emailing in pure misspelled Spanglish. I just wanted to get something out before I ship off to field based training for the next 4 days. Don’t worry I just watched the Hangover to ensure my brain was thinking in English.
So this is a feeling every Peace Corps Trainee will feel and or has felt. It is a complete lack of control over their own lives. It is a curious change to go from being completely independent to having little to no freedom. It has come to the point that none of us actually know what is happening we just move like a heard of turtles. Generally getting yelled at for being late because we are sitting outside of the room we need to be in. Also whenever we travel outside of the center I get the general sense that no one really knows what is going on. I know that the trainees sure as hell have no clue what is happening and some of the times the trainers are blindsided with change. So there is a lot of standing and then changing locations. Then standing. Attempting to speak in Spanish. And changing locations. And standing.
The funny thing that the over controlled feeling I get daily from my professional life extends into my personal life as well. I was told by the Peace Crops roughly a million times that girls in Latin America don’t wear shorts. This didn’t pose much if any problem to my life until last weekend when I was trying to do P90X (a work out video) in my room. My host brother told me that we were going to have lunch ahorita (a little bit of now). Tragically I learned that a little bit of now is not the same as ahora (now) because for the next 60 min I kept doing something and then changing out of my exercise shorts and into jeans to go outside to see if the table had been set. I think I much have switched my pans about 93 times. It came to the point that I was so frustrated about having to change my pants every 77 seconds that I went into my room and put on my work out shorts and then laid there on the floor with frustration. That’ll show em. I was exhausted from changing, hungry because I thought I was going to eat about 2 hours so I effectively did nothing besides reassure myself that I indeed did know how to button and unbutton my jeans.
Attempting to avoid the same pants fiasco this weekend I rebelled and just wore shorts. I am glad for the decision. It was no big deal. It’s just bizarre because my house is one with the Internet café so I am always inside and outside at the same time. I also decided to not wait to go running after lunch and just go before. I had to trust that lunch would come when it came and peanut butter would have to suffice for a snack. Lunch came at 3 pm. I think I went through about 1 pound of my 3 pounds of peanut butter on Sunday. Which, fun fact, I have had to lace with fiber because of my jam-packed diet of potatoes on potatoes with a side of rice. Let me tell you peanut butter and fiber tastes like joy and saw dust. Speaking of joy and sawdust I cooked dinner for the first time. I made the Mexican classic fajitas, because my mother failed to teach me how to cook anything American. If you would like to hear more on this issue, please speak to Jessie Campbell-Morrison. My fajitas weren’t exactly what you would think of instead it was a modified version because not all of the ingredients were available. But either way it was delicious. My little sister Alejandra was less than a fan but my brother like it, or at least fained interest which is all I can really hope for. I also made guacamole; I thought I was being innovative. False. My brother Limber said that in fact all 7 of the Peace Crops volunteers before me have made guacamole. Apparently I’m the least innovative on that one.
The only other real moment in my life I felt like I had absolutely no control over my life was when I was with my friend Monica and going to Santa eulaial, another city to a cultural festival. We got lost on the way to the festival and as the combi (which is a terrifying small version of a bus) turned off to a dirt road we asked a mother on the combi where we should get off. She gave us very strict instructions about where to go and what to do. The one thing she was very explicit was not to take a mototaxi (a terrifying small three wheel box of horror not meant to hold more than one American at a time). When we got off the combi after being yelled at several times about not taking a mototaxi the combi driver called a mototaxi over, escorted us into sed mototaxi and placed us in it. We attempted to argue and not get in the mototaxi, but at the end of the day we had no choice. We were ushered into the mototaxi and sent up the hill. Generally I have realized I have absolutely no control over my life at this moment and pretty soon I’m gong to have tot much.
My boss recently said that this is the adjusting moment. Like standing at the beach with your feet in the ocean before you jump in to swim. Naturally I responded expect we are about to be dropped into the middle of the ocean with no paddle. Tactful KCM. Tactful.
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