Born Running

            Thought this would be an appropriate title for this point in time in which I find myself about six months away from the end of Peace Corps service, and a few weeks from attempting to run a full marathon without dying or in least hurting my crappy ankles.

            This is the point in service in which most are at least more or less seriously thinking of extending, traveling, working, studying or bumming around for the after PC life.  I have been grappling with myself for a large part of this month on how I feel about extending for another year (or any length of time) in Paraguay, or what exactly I should do and how much time I should or shouldn’t spend researching and worrying.

            As usual, this is inspired by my random bouts of insomnia as a result of lately over self-scrutinizing, for which blogging seems to be the best solution in my lonely little straw roofed, water famished and currently mosquito infested campo situation.  I will just ignore that it’s past 3:00AM on a Thursday and have a presentation to a women’s committee in less than twelve hours.  So I pitch these thoughts into the cyber world hoping they don’t ever come bite me in the ass later.  Just writing them down and chucking them doesn’t seem to suffice.

            Earlier today, in conversation with a dear fellow PC friend, the topic of how we both generally grew up complaisant to people around us, reminded me of observing and at a few occasions having been told in high school and college that I befriended completely opposite types of people and was the one to mediate strong arguments between two opposing strongly opinionated people.  This made me think of several people I admire and regard despite them having big differences with each other.  During the conversation my friend mentioned how she attributed this to growing up constantly moving from one state to another due to her parent’s jobs, knowing that the friends and acquaintances she made she would soon leave behind.  It made me realize (well, support past ideas) that I led a similar life in my youth, though for different reasons and it could be a reason it contributes to why I will rather be complaisant to two oppositely strongly minded people in order to avoid confrontations.  I do not mean to do this to be liked by all (believe me, I have been far from the popular one everywhere I go), to be ‘two faced’ or whatever; I would rather keep quiet or avoid putting someone down (though I’m not completely innocent in every case) when confronted over petty personal differences and comportments when the opposite party is absent.

            So what the real epiphany was, that IF I extend, as some rumors have recently come back to me, for a whole year as the Environment sector’s coordinator or in any other volunteer position, or for another certain volunteer’s presence, I will have lived in Paraguay for at least 40 months (including less than 15% of that time spent on vacation).   In retrospect, only twice in my life have I lived in one place for longer than 40 months (3.25 years).  I do not include the four years of college, because just about 2/3 of the year was spent in college, where life is anything but stable or permanent.  The gist is that I was born somewhere, and moved back to join the rest of my family in another country within several weeks of birth.  I spent just under five years in that country, where I also wasn’t living in one place for the whole duration.  Just before beginning kindergarden, my family moved back to California, where though we lived in the same county, we moved around often enough that I attended eight different schools from kinder until the end of high school, so having to adjust to new schools, people and neighborhoods was the norm. 

            So through this long, most likely dull explanation irrelevant to Peace Corps life, I come to the conclusion that I feel that once that day comes, when we swear out as Peace Corps volunteers, I will probably not be excited, regretful nor extending. I have grown to love and learned to be optimistic of Paraguay.  I love the friends I have made in my community, of whom none are my age, but rather in the range of 2 to 17 years, and 35 to 86 years, giving me some of the best laughs, memories and lessons.  Though I hold very fond memories of Paraguay, I am pretty sure it will be time to move in six months.  My work here could be far from over, but feel my innate gypsy-ness is calling me to do something else and try to adjust to a new scene.  I am not sure just what yet, but at pivotal points in life like these, I have been confused, indecisive and scared; I have jumped into this unsettling darkness and managed to land on my feet, even if it hurts an ankle. As one of the first Guarani words I learned succinctly puts it, jahechata (we’ll see/vamos a ver).

            Aaaaaand enough self boasting on my part; so on that note….It is simply incredible to see and live firsthand how having the access to water is the infrastructure not only to hygiene, health, and food security, but to economic stability, education, and arguably political stability and a bunch of other varying issues.  In the little known rural community of Tapytangua Guazu, the effects of climate change are truly ‘unreal.’  This past summer was slightly hotter and a little more dry, which I hear is not completely unusual to have one or the other.  Yet, having both those variables is unfavorably abnormal, and caused over half of the families’ wells to run near or completely dry.  Just about a week from winter, and these families now have unclean water or no water at all, and are hanging on the nearly 8 year old promise of loaded government parties to install a running water system for the whole community.  It is selfish of me to know that I have the privilege to know that I will be easily moving on to places where clean water is the last of anyone’s worries, whilst many, even in Paraguay have to leave any given distance from their homes to get drinking water.