The little victories keep ya going.

So I had a guest out recently. It was a nice refresher to have a visitor from home for a few days. I didn't really do the typical touristy thing and take time off to show her all around. Instead, I keep to my wonderfully busy schedule full of literacy and computer classes, meetings with community groups, mobilization efforts, and all sorts of other things that keep me bouncing around my village. It served a good glimpse into life as a volunteer. At least now, I'll have a friend back home that can relate to my efforts on the ground here. I can't speak fully for her experiences, but the trip overall was a bit of a double-edged outcome in my opinion.

Of course like most of the volunteers--she picked up on the initial judgments: the people are super nice; the scenery is gorgeous but has concerns over the mass of litter; the bewilderment of the educational systems; and the overwhelming difficulty trying to mobilize people here to participate in activities. I could tell from her reaction to some of my activities that she had great doubt over the role, duties, and expected results we were meant to fulfill. There even came a time when she asked me what the heck was I doing here....not to mean if I was being lax but rather my purpose as an individual with my background. It seems that nearly all the things I am doing don't fall into aspects of my life that I've had much training/experience.

For the most part--I'm working on creating a music, drama, and dance group; advising a tourism group; teaching computer skills classes; forming a volunteer literacy team and conducting lessons; strive to mobilize my community in developing a village council; plan and mobilize sporting events; fostering an environmental education program; and a host of other smaller duties. People who know me could attest that I don't have a musical bone at all, have never had any sort of theatrical experiences, am terrible at sports (I barely know anything about most sports really), and have great difficulty instructing literacy at remedial levels. I was brought here to help organizations, but most I haven't even been able to get my own host organization that requested me to come to SVG as their PCV to sit down and do a simple SWOT analysis or other sort of assessment inquiry. From what I understood, she felt that if the sorts of things that I am working on were to be the real needs of the community--then the PC should have put in a volunteer who is experienced in those fields. I don't assume to know the back-end of the PC process to know why they choose who they do for the places we go. However, I'm busting my tail usually 6-7 days a week and sometimes for long hours, doing my best for now.

Having a friend from home really crank down hard on the 'why are you here' button wasn't easy to deal with, but I'm still here fighting the good fight even after she left. I will say, it's a good feeling to be here because I'm making the choice to be here. That makes it much more rewarding at the end of the day. I'm slowly trying to rearrange what I'm doing here so that it better aligns with my skills & interests. Long road, but I'm still here--fighting that good fight.

Tonight I got a little victory, one of those moments that seem to instantly display an answer to the 'why am I here' question. I had just finished a long 2 hour village council meeting and was chatting with our newly chosen chairperson. That person informed me that he had been inquiring for nine years about the need to create a village council. With my help on the ground, we are finally getting that ball rolling after a few months of prep and early meetings. Crossing my fingers to continue and build momentum. Although everything we had achieved during that 2-hour meeting was enough to be happy for the day's work--the chairperson's remark about starting to fulfill a long ambition was today's real prize.

It's the little victories that are keeping me going.
I'll just have to wait and see how things flow.

Tomorrow is our 2nd day of Volleyball lessons & games. Maybe there will be another little nugget of victory tomorrow.

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On another note, I got to check my body weight at the office yesterday; I've dropped another 5 lbs--bringing me to 161.4 lbs from my original ~186 lbs. I eat a good amount regularly and don't eat 'garbage' foods...but I feel ok, so I'm going with it for now.

So much to do, so little time.

Stay well and be happy
ciao tutti
~your local wannabe jedi
~Shawn