A Quick Pause for Reflection

‘Everything seems different now.’

‘Where did the time go?’

‘She’s going to marry me!!’

‘I’m incredibly naïve to think that I can make a difference in the world.’

‘I’m missing my brother grow up.’

‘What is God ultimately calling me to do? To be?’

‘Am I doing enough as a Peace Corps Volunteer?’

‘Why in God’s name can’t I seem to get my act together here sometimes?!’

What is it about the Peace Corps that makes me feel so conflicted sometimes with these thoughts of happiness, sadness, anger, and so on? That makes me feel like I’m both a grown up trying to make his mark on the world and a helpless child at the same time?

Is it that I speak Portuguese with the vocabulary of a preteen and experience the frustration of failing to properly express myself time after time? Or maybe I’ve just been waiting for that project, that one program, that I start or help out with that will ultimately define my time here as a ‘success.’ I can’t be completely sure.

What I am sure about is that I have changed to a certain degree. How couldn’t I have? I’ve been forced to think in completely different ways that I am used to in the office and in the field. I have had my patience tested to my newly discovered breaking point by corrupt cops and merciless oncoming cars. And I’ve seen violence, uncensored and brutal violence, on what I consider to be too many occasions already. In summary, I have had some remarkable experiences.

Living in Mozambique over the past (my gosh!) 16 months, and going through these experiences has given me much to ponder and learn from. For one, America is truly a remarkable country. If the US were more like Mozambique, Scott Brown would have lost to Martha Coakley as members of the President’s party decided to throw out votes for the ‘good of the country.’ If we were Mozambicans almost everybody would be a Democrat because failing to support the governing party would threaten our very livelihoods. But the US is the US, and we are Americans living in an imperfect but vastly more beneficial system.

Then of course, I have witnessed repeatedly the power of one or two people to change the lives of many more. There are people like Pastor Lea in the Methodist Church who inspire a community to take care of their orphans out of the kindness of their hearts. Meanwhile, it was one man’s corruption that ensured that his former NGO lost funding and, in effect, that ten people lost there jobs in what is literally a near impossible job market.

I recall coming to Mozambique in October of ’08, thinking about how much I was going to do. I’m going to make a difference. I am going to change someone’s life. But what I never counted on was having the experience change me. I am the life that was changed.

Now, as I look forward to going home in merely 10 months, I am finding myself much busier and doing the stuff that I wanted to hit the ground running and do when I got here. I am meeting wonderful people and forming amazing relationships. Having said that, I can only hope that I manage to give back a fraction of what they have already given me.