I'm feeling bland right now in New York, so I'm retracing some steps. After 10 weeks of feeling differentiated and magnetic, noticed and observed, I've arrived in a city where I only draw attention on a one to one basis and where I pass through throbbing crowds completely ignored. In contrast to Costa Rica, the new people I've met here comment on how normal and sensible I am. I feel like a rent-a-teammate, or a life-coach perhaps. Let's do this together. What is it that you need? I'm here now and it's OK. It's going to be OK. Anyway, I'm getting off track.
A few minutes ago, I looked back on an entry I posted in May, right before I left for CR. I had asked myself a series of questions, or rather, I copied a series of questions from a WorldTeach handbook into my journal and then answered them naively. In the uncertainty of my new territory, now feels like the right time to contrast those expectations with what actually happened. I need to be doing this in a softer light. A candle light maybe. Here it goes.
"Living and working overseas requires being flexible because rarely does anything go according to plan. For Americans who are used to being "in control" of their lives there is the sudden shock of being in a country where the ethics, pace, goals, and perspective are not what they are used to. It is essentail that we try to bring our expectations to the surface ahead of time, to assess what is the "lens" through which we will evaluate daily life."
->I really just breezed over this passage when I read it in the orientation guide. I thought, Yeah, I know. Flexibility. I'm flexible. No Problem. Recognizing that there will always exist things that are out of my control, digesting that change, and seemlessly redefining the path to my goal does seem to be more difficult for me within American borders than when I'm abroad. In Costa Rica, something would happen and I woulddeal with it. Here, when an adversity finds me, I still sulk a little, then I deal with it. It's really all in the mindset. It's a lot like taking a cold shower. If you get into the shower thinking that a shower is supposed to be hot, your experience is going to be miserable. Try thinking that the shower can only be cold. No hot water ever has, or ever will come out of a showerhead. That's how I figured it must have been for most of my students. They probably were unaware that you could bathe in warm water at all. If you really commit to that mindset - if it's out of your control, forget what it should be and accept it for what it is - then when you run out of hot water, you finish bathing (which is the point after all) and then you move on.
1) What images have you been building in your mind over the past months?
3 months ago I imagined homes with dirt floors and no electricity, and people who lived with much less material wealth but much greater appreciation for life, family, and community. Research has reformed the images of desititute poverty that I'd originally pictured. I expect a simpler life, but one of relative comfort. My mind is filled with images of coffee farmers, genuine smiles, intense curiousity, hospitality and community above all else, magnificent wildlife, lush green hills, grinning children, horrible roads and lunatic bus drivers, American tourists (who I hope not to meet), rice and beans, mosquito nets (I don't think I'll need one at a high elevation), embarassment as I struggle to improve my Spanish, joy as I struggle to improve my Spanish, small and minimally decorated concrete classrooms, the Miami airport (?), the possibility of getting sick or ill, the remote fear of being lost in a foreign country, loneliness, excuberating salsa lessons, and hopefully, after some time, life injected with a sense of community unparalleled by anything I've experienced here at home.
->The magnificent wildlife was not as omnipresent as I'd wished, the bus drivers were not lunatics at all (when your livelihood demands that you drive a rusting boxcar down a plinko board, you manage to put forth a surprisingly calm demeanor), and I did indeed travel through the Miami airport. As for a sense of community, I felt it, but I remember expecting to feel it like a big collective energy that would radiate equally from every home and every person I saw on the streets. I sort of imagined this land of perfect harmony where doors were always open and people were simply passing time on the front porch, waiting, smiling, and waving. The reality was that the community was large, diverse, and often ugly. There was an underground railroad of gossip. Drunks often wandered the streets in the evenings, pre-pubescent boys would REVVV their motorcycle
engines, cigarettes in between their lips, and rage carelessly across town, moms were generally bound to household chores day in and day out where they would alternate between laundry and mindnumbing telenovelas. Guys threw trash out their car windows and made sickening cat calls at everything, especially the younger women - who would say Adios to me in passing with the greatest reserve and caution, their voices empty and weak. The community was not a whole, but it was in fact a community. Where I was wrong was assuming that a community would be homogeneous. Also that all its members would be curious, hospitable, and caring. Not the case. The community I came to know was flawed, but it's greatest strengths as it turned out were not those that would be on display in the streets to the new gringo in town. The community showed its strength through it's dedication to constantly improve the telesecundaria - painting walls, building walls, adding a new roof section over the snackbar and a new blue and elegant gate in front of the gravel parking lot. I never heard rumblings that these things were about to take place - these decisions were made in someplace
more private than I knew of, but were made in the collective spirit of community improvement. Where I felt what I'd imagined I would feel was not in group settings, but in individual cafecitos, dinners, or Saturday afternoons where I unexpectedly found myself in the house of one of my students' families, being fed and questioned in a warm and curious way.
2) What do you expect your living arrangement, work situation, school, community, endurace level, and reaction to poverty will be?
I envision a modest tin house along a dirt road, 2 stories, the back of the home facing southeast over a vast and expansive valley. Green for miles around. Coffee plants along the side of the road. Men walking to work with, t-shirts permanently dirty, the smell of coffee in the morning, the smell of fresh baked cakes with a hint of cinnamon (this is totally unfounded). A cold shower, very little time alone, much time in front of the TV watching telenovelas, ideally a lot of time in the living room with the TV off speaking Spanish with my family, sitting down at the family room table with Hellen teaching her English in exchange for Spanish. Working in a four-room building off a similar dirt road, also facing southeast over an even more beautiful and luscious part of the village, perhaps only a 5-10 minute walk from home, open air windows with a warm breeze, Costa Rican kids in uniforms, an eager director (her name is Roxy, she must be eager). I expect difficulty in formulating my lesson plans, I expect creative road blocks, I expect frustration and doubt, I expect this will all pass, I expect of myself a much greater level of patience than I demonstrated with kids at DHCC both internally and externally, I expect to chastise myself for using too much Spanglish in class, I expect to sing out of key, to make up games nobody has ever heard of, to free myself of any fears or inhibitions about acting foolish or singing out of key for the sake of laughs, learning, and love - for if I share those three L's with this community, this experience will be a success.
Wow, not too bad Adam. I even nailed the character description of Roxy, even though I hadn't guessed that she would be incapacitada and then take another job.
3) What do you expect of the WorldTeach program?
Grant me independence, be there for support 24/7, visit me in my village at least once, facilitate sharing of experiences between volunteers, get me the hell out of there if there's an emergency, help generate creative ideas for lesson plans, palsmanship.
It's worth mentioning that before I left I was obsessively worried about becoming fatally ill. I almost got the rabbies vaccine for Christ sake. Ha! I hope I'm out of that stage.
4)How will you adjust if these things aren't what you expected?
A lot of pouting and even more sulking. Just kidding. I need to write, daily. I need to reflect, to refocus by coming back to these expectations, and remember that the whole idea of this life adventure, this unique opportunity that would never ever have come about for me and can never come about for most people my age, in this world, without the love, support, financial sacrifice, and trust of my family, is to put myself in a situation that is unnerving, unpredictable, uncomfortable, and foreign, so that I may better understand and one day work to solve the challenges, injustices, and preventable hardships faced by 5/6 of this world's population. Read The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, and you'll understand why I'm doing this.
5)How do you find out what expectations others may have of you?
Guessing and assuming won't lead far. I imagine there will be various expectations placed upon me; expectations of me as the sole native English speaker in the village, and within this subsect, expectations from adults, children, students, non-students, men, women, my host-family (will they expect me to devote most of my free time to them and their activities? will they want me to meet their family and friends, and be exclusive with that group?), the school-director Roxy...There will be expectations of me from WorldTeach, expectations as an American, as a Bucknell Alum (jesus, I haven't written that before!), expectations from friends and family. The more I make myself available for questions, the more questions I ask, the more and various ways I attempt to establish communication and receive feedback, the clearer picture I will have of what expectations people have of me, which ones I can and should attempt to meet, which I cannot, and which should be given priority. What expectations do you, as a friend, family member, former professor (friend) of mine have of me?
6)What are your expectations of your free time and how you will spend it?
Reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, Learning spanish, making friends, talking, talking, talking.
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