Thursday, April 7, 2011

Just a quick little note about life

It is possible that months 18ish through...whatever last month was...21?...were the most difficult months of my time here in Burkina. The repetitive comments, sexist "jokes", the calling of "nasara" were all getting old, very old, wearing away my last nerve old. I began counting down in earnest the time I had left before I could go home, determined to stay a full two years until August 25th instead of taking advantage of our option to leave a month earlier. The two-year mark has been symbolically important to me. Two Full Years.

But something happened after my Close of Service conference, and I'll tell you what it was. I was hoping that the week spent with volunteer friends, talking about our lives and our activities and our hopes for the immediate future, would inspire me and reignite my motivation for this last chunk of time I have here. ...but it didn't.

The morning I left the hotel was a morning without fanfare...everyone was dispersing and I walked through the doors alone, meandering through many hot under-construction roads before finally finding a taximan willing to not ask for a ridiculous fare. Got to the bus station and definitely did NOT make friends with the lady in the ticket booth who not only didn't seem to want to do her job but also didn't seem to want to be polite about it. My patience snapped and I was preeettttyyy American in my response to her reprehensible customer service. Finally I got on the bus and just sat there in indignant upsetness. What the hell? Why are little things like this so hard, that used to be so easy?

The bus ride was ok, and I spent my first day back in Kongoussi with Thomas, talking about our weeks and our lives, trying to figure out the logic puzzle of my post Peace Corps travel plans and how they will fit in with the rest of my time here. Not easy to do...I want to work during the coming Peace Corps training this June, I want to visit Mali...but I want to be in my community for a good solid time towards the end. I could try to arrange an internship with a local organization for a month or so during cultivation season, or be in the fields with my friends, or run some activities that I've always thought about running...but what about getting home to travel with friends? Or seeing bits of the world on my way back? In bed at my house the following evening, I tossed and turned with manic excitement and a new resolve...the way to fit everything in is to go PAST my August COS date to September...not to COS a month early or even right on time, but to take the offer to stay an extra 30 days. Six more months.

Six months! That is its own legitimate chunk of time. I can face these six months as though they are months of their own, not the end of a culmination of 27 of them. Living in Kongoussi is not something I will easily be able to do again. Traveling to neighboring countries is much easier now than it'll probably be for a long while, if ever.

I don't know exactly how I did it but I forced a change of attitude, a new mindset. I am more willing to see frustrations as adventures, to detach from my life here in a way that allows it to become vacation like, not holy-crap-I-need-to-get-through-this like. To enjoy my neighbors, my kids, my town, my life.

I'm feeling good these days. I am full of new resolve and new plans.

It's gonna be a good six months.

2 comments:

Thomas said...

organiwation! my new favorite word!

齐默 said...

Hello, Molly, my name is Aaron Whitmer and I'm a student at Valparaiso University in Indiana. For my Economic Development class I am doing a project on Burkina Faso.

For this project I need to make up a proposal for a development plan for a low income country.
The process of completing this project is a bit maddening for two reasons- one, that isn't real. It's just research and planning to simply make a presentation and write a paper- such is higher education though, I suppose.

The other maddening part is that my professor has requested that we come up with as accurate of a cost estimate as possible for the project. To that end I've been having a difficult time figuring out how much things cost in Kongoussi (which according to your blog is where you have been serving) where my hypothetical project would be set.

My two most pressing questions are what would one month total expenses be for a volunteer such as yourself be, and how much would a small to medium size commercial space be a month (something big enough to house a bike shop). if you happen to have a rough estimate for either of those questions I would be extremely (extremely) grateful.

you can reach me at adwhitmer@gmail.com

Thanks!