¡Olé!
Last week was the most relaxing and a much needed tranquil break! Everyone had the week off for Semana Santa (Holy Week) and I stayed in Manzanillo and was cogiendolo suave (taking it easy). I slept in, cleaned, organized, ate sweet bean dish at all my favorite doñas houses, took a beach day, painted my nails, worked out, went to a merengue show with my grandma and extremely fashionable aunt and read three books.
One of the books I finished this week was Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It’s quite popular in America (so I hear) and I wanted to see what the fad was all about. Glad I did because it was a great read! Quick synopsis: Wild is a true story of one woman's journey hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Oregon back in the 1990s. In documenting her travels, she simultaneously explains real-life problems like divorce, her mother dying, and a crumbling family life. Even though her life situation was/is completely different from mine, it was amazing to read how relatable her trail life is to my life here in the Peace Corps. PCT life is just like PCV life I suppose! A few quotes in particular have really hit home for me. Here’s my list of relatable quotes and a lil commentary on each one.
- “My new existence was beyond analogy, I realized on that second day on the trail. I was in entirely new terrain. What a mountain was and what a desert was were not the only things I hadn't expected. I hadn't expected the flesh on my tailbone and hips and the fronts of my shoulders to bleed. I hadn't expected to average a bit less than a mile an hour...”
Within my first month as a volunteer, I realized that my Peace Corps life is beyond analogy. What a culture is and what a volunteer does were not the only things I had my own expectations for. I hadn't expected to be living in a food desert, living teasingly close to comforts of America, never being alone, and constantly being constipated. I hadn't expected that my community projects wouldn't always work out as planned. And trying compare it “all” (my town, my job, my emotions, my challenges, the culture, the food, etc) to anything else in the world is impossible.
- “I staggered north toward Kennedy Meadows, furious with myself for having come up with this inane idea. Elsewhere, people were having barbeques and days of ease, lounging by lakes and taking naps. They had access to ice cubes and lemonade and rooms whose temperature was 70 degrees. I knew those people. I loved those people. I hated them too, for how far away they were from me, near death on a trail few had ever heard of.”
What gets me is that not even 2,000 miles away, people are having barbeques, doing hot yoga, drinking good beer, eating kale, easily streaming Netflix, eating hot cheetos, having wifi everywhere, and experiencing climate controlled rooms. But then again, those same people don’t get coffee 24/7, rice and beans everyday, merengue/bachata music all hours of the day, to walk to work, Caribas platano chips, tostones, or the thrill of riding a motorcycle around town!
- “I stopped in my tracks when that thought came into my mind, that hiking the PCT was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Immediately I amended the thought...Hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard. It was strange but true.”
- “By the end of that second week, I realized that since I’d begun my hike, I hadn’t shed a single tear.”
I still haven’t cried hard and good here and it’s been over 8 months! I guess that means it’s going well?
- As I walked, I didn’t think of those snowy peaks. Instead, I thought of what I would do once I arrived at the Kennedy Meadows General Store that afternoon, imagining in fantastic details all the things I would purchase to eat and drink...I pictured the moment when I would lay hands on my first resupply box, which felt to me like a monumental milestone, the palpable proof that I’d made it at least this far.”
This quote resonates mostly because I spend time picturing the moment when I will lay hands on my next care package, which feels to me like a beautiful godsend, especially when it contains some combination of almond butter, Orbit gum, chocolate, Samoa Girl Scout cookies, dried mangos, chapstick, Reach mint waxed floss, new shirts, granola, nuts, fresh underwear and love notes.
- “I spent hours in a half-ecstatic, half-tortured reverie, fantasizing about cake and cheeseburgers, chocolate and bananas, apples and mixed-green salads, and more than anything, about Snapple lemonade. This did not make sense. I’d had only a few Snapple lemonades in my pre-PCT life and liked them well enough, but they hadn’t stood out in any particular way. It had not been my drink. But now it haunted me. Pink or yellow, it didn’t matter. Not a day passed that I didn’t imagine in vivid detail what it would be like to hold one in my hand and bring it to my mouth. Some days I forbade myself to think about it, lest I go entirely insane.
For me, it’s not Snapple lemonade, but more a combination of the things I can’t have. Kale enters my mind a lot, as does spinach. And iced tea and iced coffee. And as she remarks, some days I forbid myself from even thinking about American pleasures, lest I go insane. It’s the worst when I’m talking on the phone to my momma and she’s munching away on something so I go ahead and ask, “what’s that you’re eating over there?” and she’ll reply “oh, sorry honey, it’s a caramel from Trader Joes” or “it’s just a kale salad dad’s making.” It’s torture! And the snapchats yall send of delicious meals...rude!
- “As difficult and maddening as the trail could be, there was hardly a day that passed that didn’t offer up some form of what was called trail magic in the PCT vernacular – the unexpected and sweet happenings that stand out in stark relief to the challenges of the trail.”
Yes, the Peace Corps is challenging and frustrating a lot of the time, but it’s also so much fun and so beautiful that I get to experience a new culture, live here, make friends here, hang out on porches, work with youth and mothers, and just be here. Every day, month, project, and experience is a net positive even if the accumulation of its parts comes with negatives.
- “The PCT had gotten easier for me, but that was different from it getting easy.”
I’ve taken to writing in a journal and when I reflect back on entries from months ago, I can see how far I’ve come and grown and that’s been inspiring to me and truly powerful. And looking forward I see how much there is left to do, and think to myself than in one month, two months, six months, I’ll be looking back on today thinking how much more satisfying it will become. In 8 months here, certain things have gotten easier. Like the food, and the bugs, and the lack of water and electricity. But it is far from easy – a word I would never use to describe being a PCV. It’s been a combination of challenging, rewarding, satisfying, infuriating, miserable, amazing, inspiring and tough – but never easy.
- “Thank you, I thought over and over again. Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside of me; for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn’t yet know, though I felt it somehow already contained within me.”
I suppose it’s too soon to know what this experience has taught me, but I do know that everyday, being here teaches me something. I’ve been keeping a journal (thanks to Carolyn and Roy, who sent me down here with plenty of Moleskins!) and will hopefully be able to reflect in time on the experience and the lessons learned. But I do not that there is something here invaluable that I will take away in the end. Too hard to put a finger on it just yet, or maybe I never will, but it’s here with me!
¡Nos checkeamos!
B
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