When I started thinking about joining the Peace Corps, I did a lot of research. I talked to many people who had been volunteers, and I read many, many memoirs about volunteers’ experiences. However, whenever I was reading someone’s account of his or her experience, I had to remember that each person’s experience could be vastly different than another’s. Pieces of advice depended greatly on your job and location. Someone’s difficulties in Africa could be the exact opposite problem for someone in South America. However, after reading and hearing many different experiences, there were two things that seemed to be the common problems for most volunteers: loneliness and boredom. Therefore, I tried to prepare myself for these very likely future difficulties.
Loneliness is very easy to understand and quickly experienced. Everyday, I am surround by people of a different culture, which, in some ways, is pretty exciting. But when the stress of this difficult job in a different culture is getting to me, the fact that I’m the only American in a 20 kilometer radius feeling this way makes me feel even lonelier. Not to mention all the cultural and language barriers floating out there. Additionally, I don’t have social life. A lot of my work is done after school hours: planning, making material, typing everything, laminating everything (i.e. using packaging tape), etc. When I was in America, I was active in many activities after work hours. That is not true here. And pretty much any activity I do after work hours could technically be categorized as work. And I miss my family and friends back home, obviously. Anyways, being 5,000 miles away from the people I love the most and the only American in a town with a job that requires me working in my room after school hours and allows no social life results in loneliness.
Boredom, however, is not something that can apply to my situation. Many PCV experiences that I had read talked about having nothing to do when they leave work, and how their “office” cancels work a lot, so they have a lot of time to fill. In my situation, I think it would be more accurate to describe my feeling as restlessness. I feel like I am always working. When I finish my day at school, I come home to the pile of work I need to prepare for school the next day. Most night, I’m not done until 8 or 9 o’clock. I keep waiting for that day when I’m going to get faster at this. But as I start to get faster, I find a way to make something better, which takes more time, and therefore, I’m still working the same length of time. And while I feel like all the work is necessary and well worth (although sometimes I have to remind myself that fact), it can be very difficult working all the time. I’m used to being a busy and active person, but usually my time is filled with multiple things. I had activities I did outside of work, plus (what is now a foreign concept) a social life. Having my all my time filled with one thing is a new concept for me, and I’m not sure I like it very much. Sometimes, I’m so tired that I wish I had never heard so many accounts of PCV needing to find things to fill their free time. It sounds like a luxury I would appreciate.
I mentioned that I’m going to start teaching an adult English class and continue a youth English club. Both of these things seem like the perfect kind of thing I would like. They will be something I enjoy doing, and they will give me a break from my schoolwork. But I must confess, I’m worried about adding one more thing to my full days. Even though I think it will help my mentality, it will not help my constant feeling of restlessness. But I’m hoping that my feeling of restlessness will change to a feeling of vivacity and accomplishment. Here goes it!
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