Workin on the chain gang

"There is a tree and it stands tall and proud. Here is the base, here are the roots, and here are all the leaves on all the branches. You are like a tree, Megan. You don't get the support and food for your roots, you start to shake, you lose your leaves, and people in this place lose out on working with, using, and being around something beautiful." -Mogale, T R. (Rejoice)

So, I haven't really been talking about my office... or, for that matter, my work, the last few weeks. I guess when I'm frustrated, and so far into my service, I'm not really compelled to dwell on the challenges I still, STILL, face when it comes to my office. It's just complicated.. and then not so much.. all around. And yet it's fine. Not in that, "Whatever, it's fine, I've let so many things roll off my back and slogged through so many difficult and frustrating experiences, this is just another mere blip, I'm in the Peace Corps" fine... but it actually is OK. After months and months and months of struggling with how I could be different and what I could change to help my office... after talks with myself and then talks with other people in the community, it has finally dawned on me that the role I have played in my office is not going to change. I've tried different approaches with my coworkers . I have tried to be supportive. I have tried to be an equal. I have fought. I have cried. I have been flexible. And we're still here... I spend a lot of my time with them sitting in the office doing very little... maybe some filing, maybe being sent to buy airtime or takeaway. I watch the office while they go out to workshops and meetings. I answer frantic phone calls that request my help on this, that, or the other. I've written funding proposals that they express little to no interest in working together on... and I really have no idea what they're doing most of the time, cause there is little communication. When I came back from holiday break I was informed that the Program Manager had resigned and we were officially recognizing that our Home Based Care (HBC) Coordinator had resigned as well. Nice. Now the ol home based care is running with two full time staff and a PCV. Changes have occurred.. management has shifted... and I still don't think I'll ever be more than a gopher. This is all hard for me to admit. Admitting this brings up all kinds of thoughts. What have I been doing this whole time? Maybe if I would have done this or that.. things would be different? Why, still, can I not completely cut myself off? Am I just naive and have too much hope for an organization that is just going to go under? And, yet, as I said, it's fine. It's fine cause things have changed... I have changed. I remember back in training when PCV's from groups ahead of ours mentioned that your final stretch of your service was going to be very full, that's when everything started coming together. For me, this is so true. There have been plenty of times I have questioned why the hell I was still in South Africa... why I was still with Peace Corps... but never seriously thought about leaving because there was some pull that kept me here. I'm not sure what pulled me through all of last year.. one of the hardest, if not THE hardest, of my life..but, I'm glad I stayed. The beginning weeks of this year, after nice holidays, proved to be rough. Coming back to the village is always hard, but coming back to face frustrations you resent, really didn't have to think about and were glossed over on vacation? Harder. This is a very personal journey, filled with experiences, layers, and so many little things that cannot be described. Everyone is going to have a different experience because every place is different, every PCV is different. I don't feel like I have wasted my time and I know I've done a lot of stuff here...reminding myself of those key things, after so long, have helped me hit a new point. (And as Maite, my host cousin, so eloquently put it... when the time for leaving draws nearer, everything becomes sweeter). With the hitting of some lows, multiple conversations with other PCV's and in the village, airtime, a few books, and people helping me with ideas OUTSIDE the office... I have bounced back. I'm tapping into all the resources I've connected with over the last year and a half and I've got projects going on. Teen Pregnancy Workshops to plan for drop in centers,toilets to build, a ride out to local farms in the mobile clinic, creating a brochure for a local NGO to get their name out, searching for funding to help build up an existing school library, writing grant proposals, crossing my fingers for the community garden I'm helping my office to organize for income generating and food production, going to town to beg for donations, visiting other NGO's and organizations in the area to help connect them to each other...
I'm going to the people who want to work WITH me and more than ever I feel lucky to have the chance to share my skills with them and have them share their skills and knowledge with me.