When
I applied for Peace Corps I visualized myself and what I would be doing. I
imagined several lives; my favorite ones were having a thatched hut along the
beach in Fiji, or having a small house on a cliff with the ocean below me in Jamaica.
I imagined sleeping under the sounds of tropical birds in Costa Rica, or in the
oppressive humidity of South East Asia. Africa was on my mind but it was so foreign
and mysterious. I didn’t know what to imagine or even how to imagine it.
I believe it was
the first days of May when I received Peace Corps’ acceptance letter and my
assignment. At this point they had told me what day I would be departing and I
was able to find out online which countries coalesced with my departure date.
Togo, Zambia, and Namibia were the ones. I’ll happily admit I didn’t know a
lick about any of these countries. Namibia was the only one that I knew how to
find on the map and I had thought that Togo was a Pacific Island. I thought
Zambia was Zimbabwe and that Namibia was a jungle like the rest of Africa.
I received my
letter informing me that Namibia was to be my home for the next 28 months. By
now I had researched these countries and I was happy with where I was placed.
Now the engine to my imagination revved up and I began daydreaming what my life
in the most misunderstood continent in the world would be like. I was also misunderstood;
I imagined living in a mud house with a machete by my side on the lookout for
snakes. I imagined lions roaring at night, elephants trumpeting, and witch
doctors sending curses my way for not giving them money. Well turns out all
those things have happened but Namibia is very different from how foreigners imagine
it to be. But I digress, that’s a post for another time.
When I
visualized my life here I knew one thing. I wanted to go beyond the normal
service of a volunteer; I wanted to be remembered for generations to come. I
wanted to leave as a hero. A year in this country and I have been humbled. Soberingly
so. I arrived swaggering believing that whatever the challenge I could just put
the shoulder to the wheel and accomplish everything I wanted to. Peace Corps
told me to stay away from this frame of mind but I didn’t listen, I’m the
wonderful combination of young, naive, and stubborn, I was a flesh and blood
Disney character, I believed anything was possible.
My humbling came
in the classroom. I am teaching eighth and ninth graders in English and
Geography. Like all other challenges I wanted to succeed at teaching, I wanted
to improve my student’s performance; I wanted to be the teacher that my student’s
would remember into their adult lives. So far I have failed miserably in
improving my student’s performance. Their marks are nowhere near where I would
like them to be. Up until these past two weeks I have carried all that weight
of responsibility on my shoulders. In my foolish wanting to be a hero mindset I
was the one responsible for my students performing poorly. I was carrying 190
students on my back. Heaviest weight I’ve ever had to bear in my life. I believed
that if I worked hard enough, smart enough, I could make a tangible difference
in their grades. I couldn’t and the truth of that tore me down.
It was the middle
of the second trimester when I shattered. Last Tuesday I was marking my 8th
grader’s work and I was handing out 5/35’s, 3/35’s, and even a 1/35 to a poor soul.
My breath started becoming shallow, I started grinding my teeth, and my palms
were becoming sweaty. I tried to slow down my breath and remain calm. I still
had twenty more assignments to grade so I told myself I would go to sleep, wake
up early the next morning and finish it then. I went to bed at 7 o’clock that
night.
I woke up at
4:30 the next morning, I made some tea, put on my headphones and put on Bob
Marley’s ‘Lively Up Yourself’. I got through one assignment and I broke down
again. I just couldn’t do it, I felt the exquisite weight of all these students
on top of me, counting on me to raise them up. I went to the staff meeting that
day wringing my hands, I hadn’t made my mind if I was still going to try to
teach that day or not. By the end of the meeting I decided to voice my
frustrations to my principal. So I went into his office and told him how
frustrated, disheartened, and unhappy I was with teaching. He was very
supportive and gave me kind words explaining how most of these children are not
going to succeed no matter what we do as teachers. Life has too many chips
stacked against them. From parents that don’t care about their education,
mothers drinking while they are pregnant, malnutrition, thirst, and lack of
interest, these, my students, have an infinitely small chance of finishing high
school. Even the numbers back it up, our school has 90 grade 8’s, 50 grade 9’s,
30 grade 10’s, 15 grade 11’s, and 6 grade 12’s. Students drop out en masse each
year.
My principal
told me to take the day off and go to town and stay with a volunteer friend of
mine until Sunday to recompose myself. So I took the day off but told my
principal I would be in the next day, I was loathe to miss school, I still felt
responsibility for my students and I didn’t want to miss too much time with
exams approaching. I went home messaged my mother through Facebook asking her
to call me. She called me later that afternoon and we talked for an hour and
she calmed me down, told me to get to town and get my mind off my problems for
a while. So I did, I got on the local combi the next morning and made my way to
Rundu.
In Rundu I went
to the nicest restaurant in town with two other volunteers that were on the way
to run a marathon in Zambia. I ordered a large very cheesy pizza with onions,
green peppers, and ground beef, two beers, and demolished them. I got back to
the Peace Corps office, plopped my ass down on the couch and re entered the
beautiful world of the internet. I checked my email and saw that my family had
sent words of support and encouragement to me. I remember a particular email
from my grandfather Vovo John. My
grandfather and my grandmother were country directors for Peace Corps in
Paraguay, had worked in international development in some of the toughest
places in the world from Somalia to Bosnia & Herzegovina to Colombia and
really knew their stuff when it came to living in the poorest and most volatile
places in the world. In an email laced with great Spanish expressions (abrazos
rompedistancias!) and advice from somebody who has more wisdom than I can ever
imagine hoping to acquire, he led me back to the land of the sane and took me
out of my dark corner.
My grandfather,
grandmother, mom and dad all taught me very important lessons. They changed my
mind about being a hero to my students or at least how to quantify it. They
were able to allow me to let go of these intense feelings of responsibility for
my students. My students were not going to be successful in the way I wanted
them to be. How they do in school is not a reflection of how I am performing as
a teacher or my level of effort that I put into my job. I could be the most
dedicated and hardworking teacher in the world but with how difficult life is
for these students it would not matter. The majority are going to fail. The best
I can do is to do my best but not push, give, and care so much that it is
hurting me. I won’t make it to the finish line if I do. Paradoxically, I need
to care less to succeed. Don’t misunderstand that statement, understand that
this is Africa. This is a village in Namibia. Life is hard in a way that
cannot even be understood or imagined in first world countries anymore. To be
the teacher that these students need me to be I need to let go and accept that
there will be casualties but that my mark will be left on the lucky ones whose
life is a little bit more tolerable and have not been ruined by the gross
weight of poverty and suffering.
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