Boy, I wish I could tell you all that my trip back was the most relaxing, invigorating 4 weeks of my life and that this week has been a painless re-integration into site.
10 minutes at the Claremont taxi park, and I was already experiencing a panic attack, which I found especially difficult to keep under control when every second person was rejoicing at my return (you’d have thought I was the Second Coming). Suffice it to say that I felt that someone who works with my supervisor (and from whom I hadn’t heard anything from in months) greeted me, and then made me feel as if my vacation was something I had been sneaky and subversive about. Not exactly the homecoming I was hoping for.
What makes this especially frustrating (and sorry, everyone, for beating a very, very dead horse) is that with 10 months to go, I’m worried about getting anything accomplished with my primary assignment as it is. I feel like I’ve had the same meetings with the various players over and over again,(and written the same blog post again and again) and it’s hard to make everyone understand that yes, I COULD push some things through, but it would be me, alone. That’s not effective or sustainable, and not actually fulfilling or satisfactory in the least.
I adore my supervisor, and she’s never once been anything but wonderful and supportive. However, her business is run in such a way that her energy is very scattered, and it’s hard to get anything done when every 5 minutes someone bursts in to have her solve some incredibly minor crisis. It might not seem like such a large obstacle, but I invite you to spend 48 hours with me, and see how you feel then.
After over a year of this, I’m trying to change things, mostly by refocusing my energy on the school, which I decided not to give up on (and where I feel as if I can actually, you know, DO things). Unfortunately, this will require another meeting: with someone who makes me feel like a terrible volunteer (NOT my supervisor OR my APCD), and with two others who are very supportive but with whom I feel like I haven’t been able to communicate clearly enough.
It’s strange to be undergoing this horrible nervous tension, while at the very same time basking in the glow of my return. People are Happy To See Me.
Seriously. I would not describe the average Jamaican as a “huggy” person. I’ve been hugged since coming back. By taxi drivers, ladies at the supermarket, kids, you name it. Driving by in a taxi, and you can hear the screams: “TAYYYYLOORRRRRRRRR! YUH BACK!”
(Followed, of course, by “What yuh carry fi mi now?”)
And oh, did I miss parties! Everyone sorry say Taylor did miss di party dem, which for me, was the highlight: I was missed! At a Jamaican party! (And it’s not as if I’m anywhere near a fixture of the Claremont dancehall scene.)
When they say Peace Corps is a “roller coaster”, they aren’t kidding. Just today I’ve been through every conceivable emotion (including and especially the ones just listed), rounded off by 25 minutes of solid rage that the water pressure in my house is non-existent. Throughly disgusted with life in general, Jamaican plumbing in particular, I affixed my headlamp and trooped next door to Miss B’s tap with an old water bottle.
While sullenly “splashing up”, I remembered an article I’d read today about a refugee camp in Kenya for Somalian and Ethiopians fleeing political and environmental disasters (like draught). Built for 90,000 and housing close to 350,000, aid workers have no means of accurately tallying the number of people dying in camp from lack of water and food. And here I am, bitching about walking 20 yards for a bottle of clean water to bathe in…it’s guilt like that (totally unproductive guilt, I might add, realist that I am) that just serves to compound and magnify an already pretty overwhelming three days back.
But the main points you should take away from all of this are:
1) This is by far the most rambling post I’ve ever written. All over the board, you might say.
2) I really am so happy to be back in Jamaica, despite:
3) I still like the idea of what I’m supposed to be doing here, but it’s still proving to be immensely frustrating.
4) I am completely neurotic, and it’s probably not as endearing as I think it is.
So, thanks, loyal readers, for reading scads of similar posts and trucking through yet another one.
