Opening the Door

While “training” is over—I swore in as a Volunteer May 21^st and left for my site—my learning and discovery has just begun. I had to settle into my site, get to know my host family, find my own house, buy furniture and things for my house, keep learning the language (and the dialect specific to my community), and figure out my role here as a Volunteer.

I began my in-country posts trying to structure them around my three months of training. I assumed I would be writing more during PST. I did write periodically about my life here in general at my personal blog: http://radicaljosh.blogspot.com. Part of the reason I didn’t write is I have no regular access to the internet and the time I do have is spent on Peace Corps work and politics and keeping in touch with my friends and family.

Yet, these ten months and six months of actual service have been a journey to say the least. Have I been doing “work”? Yes. But you ask that question to any currently serving Volunteer and you’ll get varying degrees of the same tentative “well, yes…sort of”.

Ourselves, work, and our relations to that work are the all-consuming issues we face out here. During training we are bombarded with what we will be doing; how to do our job; what will go wrong; how horrible we will feel at times; how great we will feel at times; and how to handle isolation, loneliness, slow work progress, fatigue, and thoughts of Early-Termination. Then we head to our sites and have to live and work and get rid of our expectations.

With five hours a day language sessions; technical training on how to build latrines, work on family planning, talk about HIV/AIDS, etc; learning about Arab and Berber culture; being told how to not offend people; and how to live successful as an American in rural Morocco, we felt that we were learning how to adjust to the Moroccans we would live with. We felt that our journey of self-discovery would start when we became members of the community. We are all people who value diversity and culture, after all. We have adjusted our mindset to living here; we are ready to be changed! It is true that living and working with the Berbers for two years will be a journey of self-discovery, but really the journey began when we arrived at our site and sat in our homes for six months alone, scared, apprehensive, nervous, and worried. We slowly learned that before we can do our job we must first develop ourselves.

This time here as made me realize that before I can go out and experience life with the Berbers and allow this experience to change me, I first have to change enough to not be afraid to live, not just stay, in my village.

Relationship with ourselves and with God is one of the components of developing vocation. I must figure that out before I can have a relationship with a community and properly navigate the tension of sacrifice and fulfillment. As I constantly worry about if I am doing and working “enough”, as I complain and cry about my site and my role here, I start to realize I need to understand myself and who I am before I can even, literally, walk out the door. Such is true in America: we are always apprehensive of going out in the world and the community—more so when we are unsure about what we will be doing there. As the year approaches its end and I slowly gain confidence with walking around my community, I realize that before I can begin my vocation journey, before I can even being to be changed by this experience, I need to come to terms with my own fears and issues of “self-worth” so I can open my door.