Being Nice

In the past two weeks, I have been given two whole squashes. They taste like pumpkin, are currently in season, and are my favorite boiled with salt. When I was stuck in the hotel during the hurricane, I came back with five bricks of dulce de leche y coco, a treat made by boiling sugar, milk and coconut for a really long time. I got them for my closest families in town and was received with all sorts of kindness. These are the families that I visit the most even when I really don’t feel like it. If I hadn’t fully realized it before, I think I have learned more about the value of just being nice.

Life is so cruel, it is almost inexplicable that we even do it. Cholera is currently rampaging across Haiti taking lives painfully and tragically. Every day, CNN gives a hodgepodge of the latest horrors. It is not enough to destroy the environment and face natural disasters and wretched health problems, we kill each other in the name of all types of things that don’t make us happy. On a more mild level, we face our less catastrophic daily issues with whatever amount of grace and then bitch about that person who is just so annoying and fight with our most chummy people. Middle school is a minefield of everything despicable and caddy about human nature. Maybe warfare, complaining and cruelty are as inevitable as they seem to be. But, why not add to our horrid ways a little bit of showy love? There are buckets of psych studies showing that faking happiness actually makes you feel better. I am almost certain that even if you don’t feel nice, simulating kindness makes you sweeter.

In my six remaining months, I am resolving to focus on this (among other things). I have already had kids send thoughtful cards to Haiti and am hosting extra movie and art nights that I deeply dread only because I can. The nice ball will continue to roll and I think everyone else should do this, too. Send emails to authors of books you enjoy, packages to your friends, cookies to your neighbors! As the holiday season is upon us, we can do all sorts of cute things and smile while we do them. Peace Corps hosts a huge American Thanksgiving dinner for which I am excited to the point of anxiety. A group of volunteers have been organizing it for months because we are all on this island and holiday food, devoid in our lives, tastes so fantastically like home. We are implementing an all-volunteer Secret Santa which should lead to loads of small surprises.

I am sure everyone in the states is baking, reuniting and telling everyone how great he or she is looking. There will be traditions, treks down memory lane, and excursions (to Santa and such). As the twinkly lights come out and the new hot drink flavors, people trample each other to death for the best Walmart deal. Let’s just employ some considerate niceties and try to minimize the nasty. Everyone is doing it.