I want to tell you the truths of my life. Not because I want sympathy. Not because I want to complain. But because I’m still trying to figure out if all of the truths are real.
I live in a country that until the fall semester of my senior year of college, I didn’t know existed. It is a place where the answer to the question of whether I want to be there is answered daily, based on what happened on that individual day. It is a place where if I stop taking my doxycycline, I will get malaria. Here, I have met people who offer me part of their dinner every night and people who ask me for a present every time I see them. I have wanted to punch a wall more times in this place than I remember every having wanted to do anywhere else. I have at least 345 more days in this place. What I’ll be doing in 345 days, I couldn’t tell you.
I am a Peace Corps volunteer, which I guess makes me technically an employee of the US government. If I lived in America, I would live below the poverty line, but in my host country, I have never managed to not live within my means. These facts do not make me look forward to being back in the United States.
I teach English at a middle school. It is a job that I never would have listed on my top 20 desired jobs, but it gives structure to my life in this generally unstructured place. My students are stronger than I was at their age, and there are more times than I would want to admit that I am not the teacher I wanted to be. I never thought I’d be living The Dead Poet’s Society everyday, but this is a job that is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
The first three months of Peace Corps training was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done, but now, I sometimes miss it. Everything was new, everything was different and really, the biggest issue dealt with on a daily basis was what my host family was going to feed me that night.
I have two parents and two siblings. And I have missed them more in the past 430 days than I ever thought I would. I have always imagined myself as a person who would travel the world and try out every country before choosing one, but I’ve started thinking more and more about home.
My closest family here is the 23 other volunteers who live within biking distance of my house. It is not hyperbole when I say I wouldn’t have made it this far without them.
I like silence. I like being along with my thoughts. This desire is hard for people here to understand. I think my best thoughts when I’m running, bicycling or driving I-70 between Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri. I have not driven a car in over a year. I ride my bicycle everyday.
I have a cat. He kills mice for me. I give him fish. He sometimes sleeps in the valley formed by the sheet between my feet. He meows whenever he walks into a room. He is the first four-legged pet that I have ever had.
I live a media-saturated life. I have seven registered Tumblrs and two registered sites on Wordpress. One of the most disappointing things that happened to me when I first got here was the realization that Twitter mobile is not available on Beninese cellphones. I read every issue of Esquire from cover to cover. I watch Good Will Hunting once a month because for some reason, this movie helps me make sense of what I’m doing.
I will be home in 26 days. This keeps me up at nights. But this vacation will be a lot less prodigal-son-esque than how it plays out in my head.
When I come back here it will feel like too soon. I will try to build some latrines. I will finish the school year. I will say goodbye to people I have come to love. And then all the truths will change again.