peace corps

Doubt and Survival in the Peace Corps

Peace Corps service is something that can rock you to the very core of your being and shake your innards until they’re so scrambled you can’t tell your dreams from your nightmares. Why did you even come here in the first place? What was it that told you it was a good idea to leave everything to do this? Is the world any better off for you having been here?

You wanted to do this so badly for so many years and now all you want to do is go home. This is about the point in your thought process when you find yourself at the bottom of that downward spiral called doubt.

I’m not talking about doubt’s healthier cousin, skepticism. A healthy dose of skepticism can be good for you. You should question your motives, probe your thoughts, consider your feelings and weigh the pros and cons when making any important decision. Here I’m talking deep-seeded, soul-searching gut-wrenching, ulcer-inducing doubt. Why am I here? What am I doing? Is any of it worth it? Is this where I want to continue to give two years of my life?

imageI’m suddenly doubting every past decision to eat meat

At no other point in my life have I wavered in so much doubt. I’ve agonized over staying or leaving and even talked to an Army recruiter on the phone a couple of times the first autumn I was here, willing to scratch my name off the line to sign it on another, even longer contract.

It comes and it goes like tides pulled by a giant orb above our heads, almost as sure as the moon herself. Now, fortunately, she’s sailing in another sky and with any luck this season of survival will last for awhile. Yet, having been here for almost two years, I have started to realize a pattern of strategies for riding out the high tide of doubt when it inevitably comes.

Stop asking so many questions

I never used to ask myself, “Am I doing enough?” As soon as that question crept into the back of my mind, things started to go downhill. At the end of any honest search to this question lies a resounding, “NO.” You could always do more, always reach more people, always start one more project. There is way more that needs to be done within a community and country than you can possibly do. Asking yourself this question is guaranteed to result in a crushing, soul-searching session sooner or later.

And if you start questioning the work you are able to accomplish, you will soon find yourself doubting the good when weighed against the sheer hopelessness of making a dent in the world’s problems. As long as you’re working and connecting with people, you’re doing some good here. Leave it at that.

Do what you like to do, and keep doing it. One of my volunteer friends has a great strategy of simply doing a level of work that he knows he can repeat again the next day, and the next, indefinitely. This way he knows he won’t burn out, but will continue to thrive in enjoyable, meaningful work.

Take care of yourself

You are going to be miserable help to everyone if you are miserable yourself. There’s a reason flight attendants remind you to put your own oxygen mask on before helping anyone else. You’re not very useful if you’re dead.

Take the time to eat right, exercise and drink water. One of the biggest boosts to motivation is simply drinking more water. Water helps brain function, helps you get more rest while you’re asleep and keeps you alert and in a better mood throughout the day. Peace Corps issues you a filter—make good use of it.

Don’t give up on your hobbies just because you’re in a different place. Continue to do them or share them with others if you want.

Seek to strengthen your relationship with God. Your need for Him will likely be felt more acutely here than anywhere else.

Relax and breathe. Seriously. You’ll forget to do this at multiple points of your service.

Find humor in just about everything

You are going to experience some tough things, and there is a time for being somber and mourning with those who mourn. But even people going through their darkest days don’t want to wallow continuously. There will be plenty to get angry at or upset about and those are appropriate reactions to injustice and suffering. But don’t stay there. You have to balance those emotions with the little quips and smiles because brooding is a sure onramp to the downward spiral highway of doubt with no exit sign in sight. If you’re here to make things better, enjoy doing it.

And if you need to go home, go home

There’s nothing worse than after carefully weighing your options, you choose to suffer. The world’s not going anywhere. There will be more volunteers, more projects and more opportunities. As much as it is a hit to the ego, at the end of the day we Peace Corps Volunteers are just one small slice of what’s going on in our communities and in the lives of our friends, co-workers, students and neighbors. They’re going to be fine, and so are you. You can continue to keep in touch or even come back sometime, if you like.

Why I still put up with the doubt

Having said that, I’m glad I’m working through the doubt and am continuing to decide to stay. If I hadn’t I would never have met Maksat, a great friend, business partner and inspiration to me and the future of Kyrgyzstan. I would never have met my best friend Nazgul or experienced first hand the struggles of those living in a small village, out of the reach of big city resources and opportunities. I also never would have gotten to share my own English teaching skills with as many teachers nor had the time to be an influence on other people’s lives. There are so many things you can’t learn or do unless you have the backing of months or years.

For me, I think of it like being married. When I do get married, I’m not going to just wake up one day, doubt my decision and take off. The doubts will be there and maybe for a long time. But you don’t get married so you can see how it goes, playing it day by day. You get married because you’ve decided, “I’ll love you forever.” I often have doubts about being in the Peace Corps and being in Kyrgyzstan. But I also know that I’ll love them forever. And that’s why I’m still here.

imageThis one’s going to last

The second cup of tea is the hottest

“Kat!” He waved his arms and shouted. The horse feigned left then took off in a single-horse stampede to the edge of the river.

“Bleen…!” rolled down from the chorus of men now hovering outside the yard.

This one was an ahzoh – a fighter – and I have never seen so much trouble and effort for a horse slaughter. Even after the blood stopped flowing and her head lay folded back against her neck, I could see her nostrils flair and her hooves push softly against the jumble of rope about her legs.

Before, we had been inside pushing cups of tea down the line of women to be refilled. I took a sip and almost yanked the cup back – I burned my lip on the second cup.

When we had first approached the house a group of young men stood huddled in the driveway. “Arty kairyluu bolsun,” I nodded to each man, the standard phrase of respect for funerals. “May this be behind you.” As we walked past the yurt a thin wail escaped the layers of wool draped across its roof. Ropes from the top of the tunduk hung, suspending rocks to keep the wind from blowing it away.

I had been standing, chatting with my landlord’s wife when she got the news. A student came up to her and said he died last night. She and my landlord were guests at his house yesterday.

The winter chills almost everything, inside and out. The small, bowl-like chynys used for serving tea lose their heat to the winter air and suck it back greedily as they’re filled for the first time.

“Eng bir chyny ich,” she says, “Drink just one more.” I’m full but politely accept the offer. It passes the somber time spent supporting friends and neighbors who have lost a father. I pass my cup back down the line, the lip exchanging the brushes of fingers for others.

People are the same everywhere. They’re just different.

There was a knock at the door.

Bang bang bang

I decided to ignore it. I had come home from school not feeling very well and so had slipped into bed for a couple hours of afternoon rest. The door was locked to keep any neighbors or friends from just wandering in as they occasionally do so I could have a couple uninterrupted hours.

There was another knock at the door, this time combined with callings of my name.

Bang bang bang “Lu-ter!” Bang bang bang. “Luuu-ter!”

It was my landlord, who lives in the adjacent house on the property.

“Ignore him,” I thought naively, “That’s the best way to make him go away.” Unfortunately, it only served as a challenge.

There were several yanks on the door, the loose deadbolt rattling in its locked position. More knocking. Then the phone started to ring. I let it ring through. It rang again. I let it ring through again. It rang twice more before there was a reprieve in ringing and knocking.

“Thank God. He’s finally learned I don’t want to go to the door.” But it was just the eye of the storm. Moments later he returned with his son who, while my landlord began a barrage of knocks on the front door, walked around the side of my house and launched an attack on the window. It was too much. I waved my white flag.

“WHAT?!?” I screamed from my bed.

“Lu-ter,” my landlord said in a cheery voice, “Come drink tea!”

I was furious.

“Is my house on fire?” I yelled back.

“What?”

“Is. My. House. On. Fire?”

“…No…”

“Then leave me the hell alone and stop knocking!”

“Lu-ter – just come open the door.”

“No! I will not open the door!”

“Why?”

“I want to rest! Why is that so difficult to understand?”

“Ok, ok, just asking…” He walked away.

By this point I was so irritated I couldn’t get to sleep. Why didn’t he understand that when nobody answers the door, it means they don’t want to and aren’t going to? Doesn’t he know how rude it is to knock more than 2 or 3 times?

Doesn’t Luther know how rude it is not to answer the door when someone is knocking?

I didn’t get why my landlord wouldn’t stop knocking. My landlord didn’t get why I wouldn’t answer.

The difficulties in living and working cross-culturally are in our expectations. Growing up in one particular culture, we are conditioned to expect certain behaviors from people in specific situations. And when people don’t behave as we expect, we get frustrated, annoyed, confused or upset.

I came in knowing there would be cultural differences, but I didn’t think about how difficult it was going to be to draw the line between what makes us all the same as humans and what separates us by our cultural habits. It’s not so easy to know if your landlord is simply knocking because it’s the culturally friendly thing to do, or if he is inherently rude. Just what is it about human beings that makes us the same? What are the universal truths about our species? What are the behaviors we should expect out of any person, anywhere?”

imageEveryone wants to be immortalized…in carpet.

I believe it comes down to God’s truths laid out in the Bible. God’s truths cross all cultures and all of history, laying out the expectation that we are to respond in service and honor and worship of Him by doing things like pursuing justice, taking care of widows and orphans, being honest and showing one another grace.

But just how this plays out in our behaviors isn’t always clear. Being raised in one environment makes it very difficult to separate out truth from behavior. Kyrgyz and Americans are both hospitable, but a Kyrgyz person will show this by force serving you multiple cups of tea beyond your bursting point while Americans will tell you to “help yourself.” Americans and Kyrgyz will want you to eat well so Americans will feed you a portion from each section of the food pyramid while a Kyrgyz person will watch in eager expectation as you try to swallow the lump of pure-fat-sheep-butt in a breadless sheep-liver sandwich. Americans and Kyrgyz respect the elder generation and so Americans will create opportunities for elders to continue to take control of their own lives while grown Kyrgyz children will make space in their already small homes to provide for all the needs of their elderly parents.

Our intentions are often exactly the same because as humans we’re following one, collective gut in how we should treat people. But, while what our gut tells us may be the same, what our gut tells us to do can be oh, so different.

Support the individual

Part 2 of ‘Change is complicated’

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How many children would you bear for a gold medal?

I can bear being alone in a room with two or three for a couple hours. But that’s not the kind of “bearing” I mean. In the Kyrgyz Republic, a woman is presented with the medal “Hero Mother” for having and raising 10 or more children. That’s right. Ten. (I can’t even count that high before I lose my patience.) It’s a national practice dating back to 1944 when the Soviet Union began officially honoring and supporting women who made this incredible contribution to the state. Kyrgyzstan officially resumed the order in 1996.

imageThis Kyrgyz family has gone platinum

For a mother this award isn’t a singular event; it’s the culmination of decades of daily effort in raising a child. What incredible responsibility to raise children to love their communities and work for the betterment of their nation! It is to each of our honor to support these families so each individual has the opportunity to learn how to pursue justice and effect changes to deeply broken systems.

We often complain about these systems—poor schools, corrupt courts, tampered elections—in a way that paints them as separate, detached forces floating above our heads for which we are not responsible and have no ability to change. But we cannot acquiesce the situation nor abandon our wills; for, these broken systems are the conglomerate result of individual decisions and actions.

What does this mean?

Steadily influence one person at a time. Verbally and publicly encourage and reward earnest effort and right behavior. Create laws and economic conditions which support entrepreneurs and small businesses. Award positions based on merit in an open and competitive process. Lead by example and with integrity.

Our influence as volunteers is truly very little when pushed up against systems, but to individuals our kind of work can have incredible impact. The work is not hopeless, though it might look that way. The problem is people—but because this is true—the solution is people as well.

We were sitting around our last cups of tea the other week when my friend’s mother started talking about her brother. He had been a top regional public lawyer in Kyrgyzstan, moving up through the ranks through his intelligence and hard work. Since he didn’t exact bribes, he lived a modest life within the means of his small government salary. But his integrity soon got him in trouble. At this level, when the next round of promotions came he found his position priced at $16,000. Without a savings account fed by accumulated bribe money, he was out of the running and out of a job.

I pray his honest labor was not in vain. These are the individuals we must support and uphold. This is the character we must develop in each child being raised. And God willing, when the future looks back and honors its heroes, it will honor this man and the people who sacrifice thusly as heroes of the highest order.

Change is complicated

There are many things in Kyrgyzstan that need to change. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. We are invited to be here by the government because of what we can offer in making the country a little better place. Where I’m stuck, however, is in what that definition of “little” means.

Along my search, let me share an anecdote as example:

Take the English teacher who is inflating grades or changing scores on his students’ tests to make him look better. It would seem at first glance that this is a very morally corrupt man and he has issues that need to be righted. Cut and dry. After all, he’s hurting his students’ motivation to study. When they know it doesn’t matter what scores they get on the test because they will pass regardless, most students lose interest in exerting any kind of effort.

So you approach the teacher and tell him what he’s doing is wrong and that he is detrimentally affecting his students’ futures. You’re going to make your mark: he’s going to change. But you’re not ready for his answer. He tells you he would love to grade fairly, and it makes him angry to inflate the grades, but if he doesn’t he will 1. Get yelled at by the parents of his students and he has to live next door to some of them 2. The parents will complain to the director that he is a bad teacher and the director will take the parents’ side and 3. The director will himself give him a hard time and possibly even fire him if he doesn’t report good grades.

So you feel sorry for him and your incensed rage and moral compass guide you to the next level. You approach the director and tell him what he’s doing is wrong and that he needs to support his teachers in a united front against all that opposes the forward progress of knowledge. But you’re floored by his response when he tells you that he can’t let anyone in the school fail because if he does the superintendent will yell at him and he could possibly get fired and then how would he feed his family? Not to mention all the teachers who are older than him who would call the superintendent themselves to make up lies about him if he tried to tell them how to run their classrooms.

So you realize the problem lies with the school district. You march right up to the superintendent’s office and you demand a meeting. You tell him directly that he can’t force all schools to allow every student to pass because this is hurting the quality of education and is greatly affecting attendance at your school, especially among upperclassmen. He needs to do the right thing. But once again your righteous indignation is turned on its head—he tells you that if there are any failures in his district he will look really bad compared to all the other districts who are just passing kids through and then someone from the ministry of education will come down, chew him out and put someone else in charge who will take orders.

At this point you’re wondering how far up the ladder you need to go. There are so many obstacles at every level that getting a teacher to grade fairly might require an official decree from the president of the country and enforcement by the executive branch.

Other countries have succeeded in doing this, including the former Soviet Republic, Georgia. The Rose Revolution in 2003 saw massive sweeping changes executed by strong leadership that led to a significant rise in quality of life for everyday Georgians. Corruption wasn’t tolerated on any level and within a matter of a couple years, citizens were enjoying higher salaries, a competent and helpful police force, and fair chances for more people to get a higher education. It took strong, unified leaders with an unwavering sight on their vision to turn things around.

But this is really, really hard to do. It requires a perfect storm of people with the same vision all falling into place at once. Unfortunately for our hapless English teacher, if he tries to stand up and do the right thing on his own he will be quickly swallowed up in a system outside of his—and any other individual’s—control.

I wish I as an individual could change the whole country—stand up and give that rising speech—and suddenly everything would turn on its corrupted heels and march towards fairness and justice. I care about this country and the direction it’s headed because I live here—Kyrgyzstan is my home—and what happens affects my students and my host families and my friends. They’re the victims of these broken systems. Yet a strange fact remains: the same people who are the victims are the ones who are responsible; they’re all so interconnected it’s like a knotted ball where if you pull on just one loose end, the whole thing only becomes more tightly tangled.

Where do we, as Peace Corps Volunteers, fit with trying to help untangle the knot? If we stand up and say something it could be our job as well that’s pulled out from under us to be replaced with a plane ticket back home. Or we could just be noise that’s dissipated by local winds less sympathetic to a foreign voice. Or we could offend our friends with harsh words when our only intent was to help.

So do we just try and do the “little” things? Keep our heads down, teach our classes, give our trainings, lead our camps and hope that something somewhere rubs off on the right people who will stand up and be that change? Are those little things actually the big things that will someday tip the scales?

It’s something I don’t have an answer to. I wish I could be more directly involved. Maybe it’s my job to inspire the voices rather than be the voice. Yet that is complicated too.

imageKyrgyzstan – a country of vast potential