daily gratitude

              When I first found out Costa Rica was my placement, I was a student, living on a sleepy mountain in Vermont, sitting at my dorm room style desk. It was the afternoon, when in the middle of reading like it was my job, I checked my email. My jaw literally dropped when I read the first line. My second reaction was to call my mom and freak out a little. Oh my god, what?! Are they for real?! They have to be joking! I then quickly ran and told my housemates. When it sunk in a bit, when the confetti and champagne foam settled, I felt like I was cheating. I was ready to spend 2 years in a hut with no electricity, like my friends had done, in Kenya (and are doing ). They meant to tell me I’d be in a vacation destination country doing development work not even 3 hours from my home state? If I take it, what does that say about me? Am I still, like, a real volunteer? I didn’t even know Costa Rica had Peace Corps! Lucky for me, I had a reserve of RPCV’s that I ran to in order to answer all these questions and over a few key conversations during Sodexo lunches and dinners, they indeed answered them. They reassured me that regardless, I was going to be a peace corps volunteer, a title that is never born lightly no matter where you are. My RPCV Rwanda friend told me I sucked! But the couple that served in Nicaragua said not to worry it was going to be great and not to worry what other people will say, cause they probably will hate me but also it was probably just envy; which was then affirmed by Jeremy (Rwanda). Travis and Kelly, 2 other very good friends that served in Mongolia and Kenya respectively, told me he had all the faith in the world I would be just fine and even better than I knew at the time. By weeks end I was finally convinced I was going to be a real Peace Corps volunteer no matter what and I was ready to accept my fate come what may. (shout out to all my awesome friends who gave me that extra push!)

       Now-a-days:
            Beach corps, posh corps, cuerpo de paseo, and if I were honest, we are all these things. I’m not more than 1 hour from my capitol, or a few other volunteers, or the beach, or a volcano with a lake. My site has wind, all the time, sometimes I’m cold. I live with a Tica, who is awesome, I have two awesome host families I can count on for any possible thing I could ask for. I wash my clothes by hand but in the dry season, they dry in like a day and during vacations, I sit or lay so long, I worry about bed sores. Not lacking too many creature comforts, the words of my friends stay with me from Vermont: regardless of where I am, I will have the peace corps experience. Time spent without talking (in any language), time spent having no idea what is happening, time spent crying (sometimes on street corners), time spent thinking about things you never had time to before, time spent just walking, time spent with complete strangers who are actually your only family for miles, time spent waiting for public transportation, time spent doing absolutely nothing productive, and time spent in your community, attending meetings, being available, hoping one day they may ask you to do something. Clearly it is not the same for every volunteer across the world, as some of my friends can tell you, but the experience we get in working side by side with children, parents, teachers, farmers, representatives, small business owners, community leaders, and women’s organizations is irreplaceable. And it is almost never on our own schedule, or in any way we’d organize it ourselves, but to me that’s the interesting part. To see how it comes together for others, watch the process. It’s so fascinating sometimes I don’t even get mad when nothing is technically “accomplished” except that people got together to talk about the same things over and over again (something I’m aware may get old fast but for now bare with my optimism). It’s like sitting on the bank, learning the rivers current, until you think "hey I can totally swim in that without drowning!" Then you realize you're already knee deep moving away from the shore. It starts off slow, but then you're just in it.

               Some people ask me, "how goes changing the world?". The short answer is “slow”. I’m not changing the world, but if I was, slow is how it would go.  It’s hard enough to deal with myself some days. I do not have the ability to change the world, nor the energy. I have just enough to care about those around me and want what they want that will benefit them, and their community, then make a project out of it. I do however know plenty of mountain movers and these are the people I want to keep in my life to keep lighting that fire I need at times to push me to do more, be better. They seem to be in a high concentration lately in my life, SIT and Peace Corps. When I feel like maybe I am a bit adrift I remember how strategic I have been to place myself in these circles and how the key to my success is surrounding myself with people who are more awesome than me, so I can always try and be more like them. I have amazing and wonderful friends and each and every one of them, I have to thank for getting me here, whether they realized it or not, they have been fuel to my life’s fire that keeps burning and it is only getting bigger and brighter.