Yes, it is 2011, and no, I haven’t updated since December. Why?
Quite simply, it’s been a very frustrating few months. Although I suppose it would be misleading to say that at any point, my service has been anything other than frustrating, but there are times, when I have seen the light at the end, a glimmer, a chance that I might find a sense of purpose and a constant, continual schedule that makes me feel that my time is being well spent, and my contributions worth something.
Wow, you’re thinking, this is a lot of negativity, T, where’s this coming from all of a sudden?
Trust me, it’s not all of a sudden. I would say since…August? Sure, since August, I’ve felt that my efforts at getting any meaningful change accomplished at my assignment can be summed with the following metaphor- a salmon trying spawn up river and throwing it’s self again and again against a dam.
Most of this frustration has been swallowed reluctantly, and I’ve tried to adopt a cheerful shrug-and-get-on-with-it attitude because what else can you do? I’ve been flexible. I’ve developed a sense of humor about it. I’ve had the same conversation with my supervisor again and again, and I still feel like my days are spent in futility. Any projects I’ve tried to undertake have failed miserably. Crash and burn.
In addition to early December’s fiasco, there was the mural I’m supposed to do at a fellow volunteer’s site, which didn’t happen thanks to lack of preparation on their part (they didn’t even bother to get brushes and paint, despite having been in talks with us for weeks prior) and an impending tropical storm. There was also a presentation to be done at an outside community that was also postponed due to conflicting events.
It would be easier to cut myself a break and let go of these swings and misses if my daily activities consisted of anything more than waiting for my supervisor to stop worrying about her cookshop so we can actually accomplish something. I feel like all I do is hop up and down and wave my arms trying to get her to see the obvious. Tiring of that, I told her that we actually CANT get anything done because of the cookshop, and that if that was going to be the case, I might as well be at the school full time (where I am both wanted and needed). It was settled last week that I would be at the farm most of the week (which is what I wanted), helping out and getting a few big projects off the ground.
Which brings us to this week. It has rained every single day. Hard. I have been stuck in my house all week long, adding yet another week of non-productivity to the list. This frustration has become especially acute these past few days as I’m try to complete my Volunteer Report File.
The VRF is due every four months, and in it, we sum up our activities and their outcomes. I don’t have much to report. In fact, most of what I have to report is participation in other people’s projects, since it really really really feels like other volunteers are actually Getting Shit Done.
What’s pushing me from just angsty and frustrated to nervous breakdown hysterics is that the VRF, which is online, and part of a ZIP file, wont decompress. Mine is one of the last (maybe the last?) to get turned in. It is so late. There is not a whole lot to put on it.
And I can’t even download the file to report about the “ol eap” of nothing that hasn’t been accomplished.
