Success

Last night I found myself in town having just missed the last bus to village.  There I was thinking about stressing when I saw the Kings Village truck.  I had to make some calls but got the drivers number and was able to come home in the truck.

I have begged rides home in the truck before, but usually the truck is full and I feel guilty for asking a favor.  Last night it was just Joe and I, he had to run last minute to pick something from town.  We were also picking up our friend Judith.  There was such comfort in riding back to village in the truck.  But the comfort wasn’t from the fact that it was a private car, a goat free car, a noise free car, it was something else.  Joe is my age and here we were in town, on no ones schedule, free to pick all the things we needed without worry as to carrying it from the roadside or on our lap for the ride home.  And yet, it is still more.  It felt good to drive out of crazy town into the country, back to home, to calm, to dark sky and yellow moon.  But what occurred to me in the glow of those glorious little working dashboard lights  is how much I do miss real relationships.  Just being, just chilling, not feeling guilty about taking or asking, or guilty for cultural insensitivities, just to sit in this truck and drive home with my friends talking about what is happening in their lives.  It felt good.

SUCCESS.  The only project I have going in Peace Corps right now is weekly meetings with a women’s group in Dalun, a village five miles away.  After everyone learned to write their names, and we learned numeracy, we started a Village Savings and Loan Association VSLA.  I love these women because they are always there when I ask them to be.  They named their group Ti Bom Yem, We Seek Knowledge.  They are the best.  I was discouraged recently because after we set rules for the group, women must run to the roadside and back if they are late, people did not show up.  The first week it was market day so I understood low attendance, but the second week just made me fear for the continuation of the group. 

This week, it took an hour but everyone showed up!  I did not care, I did not even tell them to run, I was just thrilled they were there.  We elected a Chair Person who will run the meetings, we handed out personal record books and every woman gave a thumbprint for every two cedis she has contributed.  The money counter counted the money, everyone memorized the amount, the three key holders locked the box and done!  We had completed our first successful savings meeting.  In a couple weeks we will talk about how to borrow loans from the group.

These women are the only reason I am still here.  Their group name alone gives me hope for them.  Oh you want knowledge?  I will bring the knowledge!  They want to learn how to make soap.  I’m also going to show them/talk about mushroom cultivation AND show them my bread baking solar oven when it is finished.

On the way home, I was so elated.  Then I saw my friend Alex, he is the Kings Village handy man, broken down on the bi-water road.  So I stopped and talked to him for a little bit while a small boy fixed his flat tire.  I thought about how nine months ago, I would not have known Alex and I would have ridden right by him.  My bike seat keeps falling down, he says he will fix it and that he likes fried rice, so have some when he comes.

Riding into Kings Village, I decided to stop at Coni’s shop.  Usually I am so tired or hungry and I just want to get home so I can sit and browse the internet or watch a movie or something totally reclusive.  But Coni was sitting there and we were talking, so I bought a coke and I sat there for hours with her.  She shared her dinner with me, I bought eggs, we talked and then I helped her close up shop. 

This is what killed me a little bit.  Closing up Coni’s little food stuffs and cold drinks shop felt a lot like closing up Vienna Coffee Shop all those late late nights in college.  She has complained about being lonely at the shop.  She was going to start selling kabobs just so she could hire someone to run it and she would have someone to talk to.

I honestly enjoyed the evening.  It felt like integration.  I’ve a fellow PCV who said “It’s all about the relationships.  This experience, it’s really just about the relationships you make.”  It’s true.

I feared loneliness before coming and come to find out, I just wanted to be left alone.  I feel like people want to talk to me all the time.  When people are knocking on your door all the time, calling your phone all the time and you just want to be left in peace, you think “I’m not lonely, in fact, everyone leave me alone!”  But until you have a truly social moment with a friend, and you aren’t there because you have to be or because you want their food or because you feel it is your duty to socialize and you are strategically planning when it is acceptable to leave and what excuse you will give to get away, you do not realize how lonely you are.

Coni says I can run her shop sometimes, but she cannot pay me.  I do not mind this idea at all.  This is community.  This is giving.  This is living.  It is social and it is love and I am lucky.  That thought came to mind while sitting and chatting tonight.  How lucky I am to have done this.  How proud I am to be a PCV and be among my peers.  As much as I hate it sometimes, it is my dream job.  Even though I thought about leaving when I thought the women’s group was on the edge of collapse.  Or when my full grown garden was dug up and replaced by my neighbor’s onion nursery.  Or any number of things that happen on a daily basis that you just hate.

Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.

Emily Dickenson