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Own the fight

Something happened this early September that I’m not allowed to talk about here. At least not in the way I’d like to, heavily laden with expletives and a sprinkle of incitation likely to attract an enemy or two. I was going to keep quiet, and for the first 29 years of my life I’ve done just that. Not anymore.

A particular injustice was committed against dear friends of mine, and it made me very angry; the kind of angry that burns like a buried coal, slowly cooking any who dare linger by the surface. That anger ignited me as well, branded me with outrage, and finally lit the wick on that missile called action.

It’s not Kyrgyzstan that forced my hand. There are things about every country that must change. But it was the nature of the injustice, committed against my dear friends that made me start flipping tables. There is a kind of righteous rage, and I will not stand idly by as injustice continues to flourish.

A volunteer friend of mine told me I need to pick my battles. That I’ll go crazy trying to fix everything. I can’t fix everything. I know that. I can only do the work of one person and yet—that person is I—and I will be responsible for every moment of time that I can control and use to steer towards a freer and just world.

There is a fine line in Peace Corps service when it comes to expressing opinions about a host country. How do you pay well-deserved respect to a wonderful culture and turn the screw on the wrongs at the same time? How do you not come across as offensive or disparaging? In my so far brief state of incensed fury I haven’t fully arrived at an answer. But I do know that it party lies in owning the fight. I can fight for America because she is my home, my motherland, because at her breast I was nourished and weaned. But how do I do that for Kyrgyzstan? Ah—Kyrgyzstan is my home too. This is my village, my school, these are my students, my friends, my conspirators, my fellow survivors in the wake of what we call life, plowing its way through our valley.

I do a disservice to anyone I tell that everything is fine, that the nature is beautiful, the food is good and people are generous. Those things may all be very true, but we wouldn’t be here as Peace Corps Volunteers unless there were things that needed to change. Who can deny that corruption ravages a nation? That ignorance is a turn back to the dark ages? That poverty saps the health and joy of a man? These were things I knew existed, but they floated over me like a cloud, just out of reach. Yet no cloud of oppression is innocuous but spreads and seeps quietly until all are caught in its disastrous roar. Unfortunately I didn’t see it until it had settled about me, until it was my lungs filled with its poisonous air.

So I will fight. I will take whatever near or distant hill the limits of my body and circumstances will allow. The battle has always been there, but now—it’s mine.

I am America

If you’ve done a little bit of digging into becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer you’ve likely come across the Ten Core Expectations. Think the Ten Commandments but rendered much less memorable through the government’s uncanny ability to make simple communication incomprehensible.

It’s the kind of stuff that seems profound and important, but for the life of you, the moment you’ve set the list down, you can’t recall a single expectation in any detail. You know there’s something in there about being a good person and serving well, so thinking that’s enough you put it aside until you’re told to read it again. Unfortunately this usually doesn’t come until a warranted prompting from persons somehow aware of what you may or may not have been doing the other week when you thought no one was watching. And then you’re like, “Hmm…maybe I should have paid more attention to that bit in #5 about being responsible 24/7…”

Since we’re talking about slaps-on-the-forehead, let me now recall Core Expectation #9: Recognize that you will be perceived, in your host country and community, as a representative of the people, cultures, values, and traditions of the United States of America.

Note the polysyllable, representative. It’s nice to think that people will see me as a delegate, a passageway so to speak, through which American culture and values freely flow allowing perceptive considerations and weighing of differences through acute perspective. But in reality, my relationship with America is much more intimate. I am America. For many people in my village I’m the only American they have ever interacted with, and every little quirk about me gets laid on every other American like a kind of itchy, stereotyped blanket. “Why are all Americans a bit pudgy about the middle? Why don’t Americans iron their shirts? And why do they look so funny riding horses?”

My only redemption lies in the fact that the good things can settle too. Maybe I am a bit weird. Maybe we all are. But if after I’m gone people think, “Americans aren’t so bad. In fact, despite their inability to slaughter sheep properly, they are kind of nice and helpful,” I’ll consider my Core Expectations fulfilled.

imageWear them proud

Terrible Posture

I got this plastic apparatus in the mail a few months ago. It’s a wide hook with a ballpeen point on the end. When my host brother asked me what it was I said it was for massaging your own back, and then gave him a little demonstration. He fell into fits of laughter and said it was a good joke, but really, what is it for? I just shrugged and set it down.

I’ve been doing all kinds of terrible things to my back, some overtly inflicted but most have crept in more subtly. I’m not a tall person by American standards and used to walk with my shoulders back and my head held high to try and pass off my 5-11 for 6-1. I just wanted to fit in, that’s all. But here I’m taller than most and in my attempt to fit in I slouch much more often. I notice it in my shadow sometimes on the dusty path, shoulders rolled and neck tilted forward. There’s a practical side to slouching too – a greatly decreased chance of smacking my forehead for the seventh time on that doorframe. Doorways are generally made shorter here and not just because people are shorter. Shorter houses mean less building material and less cubic meters to heat. When I visited a fellow volunteer, he didn’t warn me not to hit my head on the roof, but warned me that I would hit my head on it. And I did. Twice.

And then there’re the backpacks. Yes, I carry multiple backpacks. I wish I could write “How to pack lightly” as the title for one of these posts, but it’s simply something I haven’t learned yet. I still lug that extra power adapter across the country thinking that one of these trips I’m going to need it, like I’m going to find an outlet in a tree somewhere when our taxi gets a flat tire.

imageTurnstiles: for keeping out cows and American tourists

And let’s not count out stress as a contributing factor. I have to mutter things like, “Unclench the fists. Ok, good…breathe…ok, good…let the shoulders down…there, now we’re getting somewhere…” to myself often. If I had access to a girlfriend who had a knack for massages then maybe my back wouldn’t hurt so bad. But now I’m just bringing up a point of further stress, and “breathe…good, good…”

So I’ll settle for my plastic hook, sitting on the edge of my bed, door closed to keep the laughter out, posturing for my position.

Stars Twinkle

Night crept in with dark brilliance, seeping into the earth below. A canopy of stars unfurled like a blanket across the sky. Over the far mountain reared the stallion, a deep purple armored with precious stones, now shining blue, now flashing red. I could see his silhouette in light, trace his wild mane, watch him kick the glacial peak, sending a milky dust into the cosmic air.

I had never seen the stars twinkle. I knew it only in a nursery rhyme, that old tune sung at the cradle. They existed there too, but we spewed smog and light with such oppression we blotted out the very stars themselves.

Somehow it surprised me, that towering glow. Somehow it blindsided me, that nature scene, pulling the air from my lungs in short gasps each time I stepped down from the porch; that undisturbed universe, never heeding the scratched protests beneath my feet.

I am very selfish

They say it takes getting married to realize what a terrible person you are. It’s not that you were a great person while single; you were terrible then too. You just didn’t have anyone close enough to point it out.

Like it was your fault. Everything about singlehood prompts us to be selfish and inwardly focused. From an early age we’re given individual desks and lockers at school and told to be self-achievers. When we hit that mystic age of adulthood at 18-years-young we’re told to pursue our own studies, concentrating day and night on how to improve ourselves individually. And then upon graduating we enter the work force, sacrificing family and relationships on the altar of career advancement.

We tell everyone it’s for the common good. That our striving for personal improvement is so we can best serve the world. But can the world be best served from the inside of a cubicle? Does our hand reach those on the other side of our selfish isolation? Will a workaholic lifestyle help our elderly neighbor with her spring cleaning?

All this I process as I slip into my room, latching the door behind me. I’m escaping the noise, I tell myself. I need “me” time. I’ve got work to do. But really I’m avoiding the work out there – the rounds of tea and kymyz, the dishes, the entertainment of guests. How did I get to be so selfish? Ah – I’ve always been here.

So I learn to share and give and bend as the Kyrgyz do so well. If a kid shows up to school with an apple, he ends up eating a paper-thin slice. If a neighbor asks for a sheep, it’s provided and the money comes later. Even cheating on exams isn’t seen as an affront but rather encouraged as helping lesser abled classmates.

imageGod bless the man who shared his underwear as a paint rag

I show up to school in my work pants and dirty T-shirt. I end up spackled in paint, a nose full of dust and a week to the next bath. But you know what – a hard day of work for others makes me sleep better at night and the camaraderie makes me enjoy the experience all the more.

I’m not married, so I probably haven’t yet fully explored the abyss of my total depravity. But I do live in close relationships and it’s enough to teach me a valuable lesson – if I focus on others and work hard, the selfishness ebbs to reveal what was hidden: community.