Am I still alive you may ask? Yes, yes I am. After a few glorious moments of relief (I knew you were all worried), you may further inquire, then where the heck have I been for the past month. Indeed I have been sadly neglecting my blog duties and believe me my journal is even sparser as of late (I actually spent the better part of the afternoon yesterday piecing together what I did everyday and writing it down because there was something very unnerving about having weeks go by where I had absolutely no recollection of what I did). I could simply offer my standard excuses, “I’ve been busy”, “I’ve been traveling”, “I’ve been sick”, but all of those are hideously boring and don’t really give you any insight into what’s actually going on in my life, or provide my future self with any real anchor to remember this experience when I’m old and Alzheimery. Lets dig a little deeper. What have I been doing for the past month? I’ve been putting in my 10,000 hours.
If all goes according to plan, my Peace Corps experience will be just over 800 days long. My work here includes cultural exchange along with actual development work, and then a hefty amount of sharing back home through things like this. That means that every day I am working pretty much from the moment I open my door to the time I go to bed. Give or take 4-6 hours depending. For arguments sake let’s say I “practice” my Peace Corps skills then for 12 hours a day, which is a very conservative estimate. 800 x 12 = 9,600 hours. Every volunteer says that at the end of your two years you’re just about ready to start making a real impact, and based on these numbers I believe that’s true. Malcom Gladwell says that it takes the average person 10,000 hours to master something meaning that I’m not going to be really all that good at what I’m doing until I leave. Now that’s a depressing thought. It’s kind of liberating too though as it means I’m normal. Throughout this whole experience I’ve been plagued by feelings of self-doubt and just thinking that I’m not good enough at what I’m trying to do. In many ways I’ve never been worse at any other job: not since I was a baby have I not been able to communicate, or navigate culture. It’s certainly a rude awakening into the real world of our personal strengths and, more often, weaknesses. New college grads think they know everything; they’ve honed their abilities and are ready to take on the world. I’m pretty sure that everyone finds out sooner or late that that confidence is an illusion; I just think Peace Corps forces that humility a little faster than usual.
Now if we take away the standard western impatience to get things done quickly, then the 10,000 hour rule really is a blessing. It gives the world permission to fail and failure is a beautiful thing: it’s the only way we can ever truly move forward. I have failed so many times here it’s absurd. My failures range from mixing up the words for goat and donkey so that I accidentally told my family that American’s like donkey cheese, to watching a 1,000 tree pepiniere die because the women’s group forgot to water it, to crying on the roof of the Kaolack house after spending two days trying to get a water pump to work and finally giving up. Failure sucks but its necessary, as is time. I decided to give myself a little challenge to not go to the regional house for the entire month of June and to spend as much time as possible in village just working. Partly I did this because I’m swamped with projects; partly I did it out of pride. This month was hard! I don’t know the last time you worked 7 days a week for a month, but it sucks. Something amazing happened though about two weeks in. Firstly I felt my language skills soar, I fell into a rhythm with my projects and fixed a lot of their problems, and most importantly I stopped worrying so much about whether or not I was doing any of it “right”. I started to see that this is a long learning process and I’m just not going to get it all right away. I also started to see that without a lot of stress, these skills will just come on their own over time. Take language for example. Just being around Serere for so long now I’m understanding new things every day. Patience is indeed a virtue and a relief that gives us leave to take our time.
So how about the nitty gritty: what HAVE I been doing this month? Here’s a little recap. The month started with selecting the farmers to whom I would extend improved varieties of field crops. On the 8th and the 9th, our sub region had two days of “louma circuses” where we played loud American music at weekly markets and taught people about Malaria and how to make inexpensive mosquito repellent from local plants, soap and oil. On the 11th I went down to Karang and Massarinko to work on two rope pumps, both of which had terrible problems initially. The 14th-16th I had a French language seminar in Toubacouta to try to actually learn a language I can use outside my village. The 20th I had to make a day tip to Kaolack to pick up grant money for the pump project, then on the 21st I went down to Karang to finish up the pump there and work with our Master Farmer. The next two days were more seed extension work in village, and then on the 24th we had our subregional meeting and I started working on Rope Pump how-to videos with our third year video man. On the 26th I seeded millet with my family and then went to the girls Leadership camp in Sokone where Byron and I lead image theatre exercises with the girls to help them think about the identity of women in Senegal and roles within the family. On the 29th I biked to Emily Tran’s site to talk to her village about a pump, then spent the day working with her on her projects. On the 30th I biked back to Toubacouta where I worked on the pump blog for the morning and then distributed more seed in my village in the afternoon. On the 1st Byron and I went back to the camp to do one more round of Image theatre and saw that the girls really improved over the course of the week. By the end of the exercise we actually had one girl who made an image of a man and women doing 6 different jobs ranging from the military to being a lawyer with no hint of domesticity. On the 2nd I finished up distributing seed in my village and today I headed into Kaolack for a little break. Yes I have been busy.
I am going to fail many more times in my service, but at least practicing my scales is starting to pay off.
Cheers,
Garrison
P.S. Yo America guess what? Its yo birthday tomorrow!!!! Let’s party it up bro!
