This has been my MO for the past week.
I calmly attempt to make decision of what to do with life. Have congratulatory piece of chocolate for having made said decision. Then, Sonia, my counterpart will call to ask where I am and tell me that she loves me. For the 4th time that day. I break down. Have 42839408 pieces of pity chocolate. Become angry. Decide I am staying. Re-read e-mails from my Mother. Decide it's too dangerous to stay. Maybe.
After reading a very uplifting e-mail from a close friend, who told me that he has "faith that you will make the decision that needs to be made, and take care of those who are close to you," I found new resolve.
Perhaps all of my incessant and squirrel-like fretting over my situation has in fact, made it more difficult. Okay, I admit this is pretty self-evident; but it appeared as a near-revelation for me. What really had my emotions strangled was not my life, but the lives I have come to know while here. The relationships I've made. I must serve them first, and in a way, I will be serving myself. All will come to pass in time.
I read the Doctor Seuss book my parents gave to me after high school graduation, "Oh! The Places You'll Go." In the front right page, my wonderful step-father had written:
"Look to this day, for in its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence...the bliss of growth, the story of action, the splendor of beauty. For yesterday is already a dream and ...tomorrow only a vision. But every day well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope."
With new conviction, I decided that I will leave Peace Corps at the end of this month. However, I will let each day that passes from then to now be filled with "all the verities and realities" of the life I've grown to love here in Guatemala.
Which brings us to today. I spent the day preforming check-ups on 6 pregnant women with Sonia.
Our schedule:
Meet at 5:45am
Wait for a bus
Hour to two-hour journey to the village we are visiting
Begin "the pregnant-lady search," as I like to call it. OK, we're doing a "census" for expecting mothers to get their vitals, hand them vitamins, and make sure they know when to come to the "Casa Materna" to have their babies. Talk with them. Calm their fears.
Today, in a period of 5 hours, I saw the worst and best of this country I've come to love.
We visited a 15 year old whose pregnancy is unknown to everyone except myself, Sonia, and her mother for fear of discrimination; the supposed father is a man in his 60s who lives in the adjacent house. She is in middle school.
On our way to visit another mother, we encountered a tremendously happy and bright 3 year old girl who insisted that we take pictures of everything so she could scream in excitement as I showed them to her (many children, due to malnutrition, basically look like zombies with minimal facial recognition or interaction with the world, same as the adults. It is an extreme pleasure to witness a child that has interest in her world). We listened to "Goin' to the Chapel" on my iPod. She was delighted.
We visited a mother whose previous daughter had died at 2 months old for unknown reasons while her husband had abandoned her. She just gave birth last week, prematurely, to a baby girl. They are doing well.
I talked with a girl my age about her baby who is due tomorrow - she wants it to be a boy. In appreciation of our visit, her mother gifted Sonia and I some beautiful cactus that is widely used in this part of Guatemala and Southern Mexico to soothe inflammation - "Toni" it is called.
As we made our way home, we had to cross a river where local men were removing sand and rocks for construction. Looks like those materials didn't get used to build the bridge we had to cross:
I came home dirty, tired, and mildly sun burnt; the usual. I had experienced the heartbreaking, the heartwarming, and the frightening. But I was home.
Walking through the forest with one of the teachers I work with a few weeks ago, he remarked to me as I kept falling over all of the branches and roots on the ground, "You know Elizabeth, this isn't life, it's just walking - it doesn't have to be so hard." I laughed at his casual wisdom.
This has not been the easiest of paths, Peace Corps, but it has indeed been the most rewarding yet. I am leaving one home to go back to another, be it by walking, stumbling, broken-down bus, plane, or make-shift wooden plank bridge. I have lived every minute of it - and lived it well.
0 comments:
Post a Comment