The Second Time Around

In the same way that an adult perceives the world differently than a child, I now perceive Malawi as a completely different place compared to a year ago. In general, things haven’t really changed since last January. We have gone through a full cycle of seasons, the same problems of hunger; poverty; and disease are still obvious (will they always be?); and most people still appear fairly content with the way things are. Although this place hasn’t changed much, I certainly have.

A year ago I was ignorant, concerned, and overwhelmed. Now I am aware, jaded, and bored. I have a better understanding of how things work (or fail to work) here, but this hasn’t helped me to fix any of the problems that I set out to fix in the beginning. Or maybe this has helped me tackle these problems more skillfully, but from the start, the problems were insurmountable. I shouldn’t be completely negative; there have been small successes. It is these small steps forward that I need to learn to appreciate-the big steps forward don’t seem to come around too often.

One thing I am slightly ashamed of is my lack of enthusiasm these days. I recall writing on this blog last year that I was waking up excited for the beginning of each day-for a chance to make some kind of a difference. I can’t say that I wake up with this excitement any longer. Lately, I seem to be simply going through the motions. This isn’t such a bad thing-going through the motions of life-lots of decent people float through their entire lives in this manner. But I can’t ignore the daily hollowness that I feel. I don’t think this is a result of the circumstances that I am living under. Rather, I think it is a personal issue that needs to be fixed by me personally. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to change all this, but I’ll think of something. I always have in the past.

I now think of myself less as a Peace Corps Volunteer and more as just a regular dude living in a foreign country. A year ago, I was very aware of my duties as a PCV and the advice I had been given to fulfill these duties. At the time, this mindset was essential to “getting my feet wet” here in Malawi and allowing me to be where I am at now without any major hiccups. I have found that now, especially when I’m at home in Chadabwa, I can go full days without even thinking about the Peace Corps and other things related to it. I’m now able to think about things from an independent view, and for better or for worse, this has given me a better understanding of the way this world turns (although I still feel that this understanding has only scratched the surface of things). Certainly, I have grown up quickly here. This is something that I haven’t really thought about until recently. I have never had so much freedom and responsibility (or maybe it is instead a complete lack of responsibility because there are no consequences to failure when I am in a setting where failure is commonplace) in my entire life. This has forced me to define myself as an adult and set standards that I will want to live up to for the rest of my life.

When I get together with the friends that I came here with back in September ’08, a common topic of conversation is “Which of us has changed the most? How have we changed?” I have felt, and been made aware of by others, my own personal change, but what amazes me is how my perception of the world is completely different. I look out the window and notice finer points that I hadn’t been aware of before. I hear things that I couldn’t understand or weren’t as meaningful before. I now know things which have removed the glare of life’s silver lining (There’s a handicap woman in the village across the street. She often gets raped in the fields nearby her home. She has multiple children with unknown fathers. As you can imagine, it is difficult for her to feed and clothe them.).

Do not let all this whining and moaning let you down. Bryan is doing just fine. I think that 2010 will be just as good as 2009, if not better. Although I don’t think I will go through as much “personal growth” this year, I’m sure that I will have an entirely new perception of things a year from now. I am still seeing and doing a lot of interesting things. Here I have met many fascinating people that I will never forget.

"'Always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty meters through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky.[]The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking. Most people you encounter will be vines; when you are a young plant they are very dangerous.[] Always listen to yourself…” Bryce Courtenay