My life as a Peace Corps Volunteer...

My life as a Peace Corps Volunteer...

Saturday, July 16, 2011

...ONE YEAR...?!

For days, I have been sitting in front of my computer, typing and deleting sentence after sentence while attempting to summarize, through words of lyrical genius of course, my year in Mali as a Health Education volunteer. And…

I have nothing. I have no idea what to write. It is really difficult to write about my life because I see it as completely normal and boring, yet everything I do still seems crazy to everyone in the States. I am still the same ol’ JessSoja that I was before I came here, but now I just have a bit of a different outlook on life. I still stand up for what I believe in, no matter the consequences; I still like to have fun, even in a society that feels women should be barefoot and pregnant in the “kitchen;” and, I still have no problem defending my feminism in a predominantly Muslim and (from my experience) chauvinistic country.

When I arrived in Mali, I did not plan on changing the world, or even changing myself through some magical, soul-searching journey like some people write about and hope for. I arrived here after being on a super delayed, super cramped, and super long flight, and I was sweaty. I was sweaty and smelly. I saw trash lining the sides of the “road” and children playing in that trash for fun. I was told how to bathe out of a bucket every day, and told that I would never really be clean because I live in the dust belted Sahel. I was given lessons on how to squat into a latrine and use my left hand as toilet paper. I was prepped on how to live my live as the “third sex” in this Muslim country, not quite a man but not a traditional Malian woman. I was trained in community health work and how to live in a village with no electricity and no access to the outside world, sans a short wave radio. I saw pythons, scorpions, camel spiders, puff adder snakes, and other creatures that I was used to viewing only behind very sturdy glass at the National Zoo. I was given peanut sauce, rice, and cabbage and told to eat with my right hand only. I was told to bleach all of my veggies for 30 minutes before eating them in order to avoid amoebas and other common parasites. I was prepped for temperatures to reach over 100 degrees daily, and told how to avoid heat stroke by drinking four liters of water per day. So, I was drinking warm, filtered water, dreaming about ice and slushies from 7-11, and being scolded for venturing into beautiful, cold waterfalls because I could acquire schistosomiosis. I was shitting about 10 times a day into a hole in the ground for a week straight. I was forced into a new environment, forced to live with a family who I could barely communicate with, and forced to cry in the privacy of my leaky, one room, mud walled, tin roofed hut while trying to become friends with the volunteers that I was arbitrarily assigned into Homestay with. Being in the third poorest country in the world, being unable to communicate, and being thousands of miles away from my family and friends made the beginning of this journey seem hopeless. I was lost, confused, and literally, shitting my ass off. It was not pleasant. And, I barely knew how to say my own name in a silly language known as Bambara.

Staff thought that I was going to leave for America and never come back, but, in true JessSoja fashion, I did not give up. Now, one year later, everything that I hated about Mali has become endearing in some way… or, I just don’t care enough to worry about it anymore. My hygiene has completely disappeared and I don’t mind being dirty, not washing my long curly hair for a week, or having my straw roofed mud hut filled with dust. I love eating with my right hand, and I don’t use my left because I no longer use toilet paper. I don’t mind shitting in a hole. I don’t mind the heat anymore, and I have learned to love the smell of the rain and even the dirt that comes with it. I have even learned to love every cultural thing that shocked me when I first got here, such as the dirty children, all of the creatures that invade my hut, throwing my trash onto the ground, living without electricity, and not shaving my legs for weeks at a time. I love that I no longer rely on my Blackberry or Facebook for my latest entertainment, and similarly, I love that when Malians ask how I’m doing, they genuinely care about my answer. They are not multitasking with their latest IPod application and tuning me out, but instead, they thank me for moving away from my ungrateful village and coming to befriend and work with them. Learning about Islam has been very different and interesting, and I feel very fortunate that I am not one of the masses of ignorant Americans who feel that everyone who prays to Allah is going to blow up part of our sacred country. The Muslims I’ve met here are more generous than many of the Catholics that I grew up with. While Mali has been challenging, I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to simply be challenged like this.

So, I can’t offer any words of wisdom on how Mali has profoundly changed my life… I’m sure that will come years after reflecting on this journey. What I can say is this – I am definitely in a different place mentally, physically, and emotionally than I was one year ago, and I can’t wait to experience what this next year in Mali has in store for me. I’ve truly made some best friends here, and I know that I can talk to them about anything from my latest stool sample to what someone in village killed and cooked me for dinner. Whether my new site (which I am moving to on Monday!) brings me more joys or more challenges, I really can’t be certain. But, I have one year left, and I plan on making the most of it.

This quote by Tolstoy, told to me by a wise volunteer, really sums up how I feel about my service right now (thanks, Rover): “I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor-such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps-what more can the heart of [wo]man desire?”