A Forgotten Post

This is something I wrote back in October and have been debating whether or not to post it. Here it is.

Some days are harder than others. Most days you are happy and go through your daily routine. Wake up to let the chickens out. Feed the dog. Eat breakfast while heating water to bathe with. Bathe. Walk to school while doing the culturally mandatory greetings to everyone that you see. Work you’re a** off all day. Come home. Cook. Sleep. It’s a routine. It keeps you habitually content with your circumstances.

But some days your thoughts wander. You question the choices that led you here: “I gave up so much and left all of my friends and family. Is this really worth those sacrafices?” “Am I really happy here?” “Am I doing what’s best for me?” These thoughts are daunting and they don’t go away over night. It’s a constant battle of weighing your happiness, sadness, self-satisfaction, lonliness and general health. The scale tips back and forth, like a boat trying to stay afloat on a rough see, but never quite reaching an equilibrium.

Sometimes I am so happy, so motivated, that nothing can get in my way. Sometimes (very frequently) I feel uncomfortable and out of place. Sometimes it’s necessary for me to hide, to suppress, my culture from my community. There are so many things that I can’t do, can’t discuss, which before coming here were so deeply ingrained into my cultural identity. It’s a constant uneasiness that I can’t explain. Having to deny your culture is more difficult than I could have ever imagined.

Most of the time the state of discomfort is balanced by how happy you are with your job. I love my job and I love what I do. I love my community here, in my small Rwandan village situated on the top of this mountain. They teach me lessons in patience, flexibility, and community identity. There are no immediate results of what I do to show me: “This is working. You are doing your job.” There is no big reward or public acknowledgment of what we do, but we are here. We are Peace Corps Volunteers through all of the struggles and the successes, through the genuine happiness and sadness, through the discomfort and content. It is the hardest job that we will ever love.