Just Changing My Glasses

Life is always full of mountains and valleys wherever you are. It also always seems like events or conditions that alter your situation come in little bundles. You achieve some accomplishment, you get a message from a long lost friend and the weather turns fabulous all at the same time. The same goes for the valleys. Your car needs work, some social drama makes your stomach churn and then a bird poops on your head. These things seem to come in groups partly by coincidence and partly because you are wearing sunglasses, either rose colored or crap brown. Right now, I have to admit, I am in a bit of a valley and I am trying hard to change my lenses.

I came home from Thanksgiving with a detour including a lot of sitting at deserted intersections, an overheated bus engine, and a jerky driver who took my money and then left me short of my destination at a military checkpoint with no cell signal. I thought my foul mood could be washed off with a cold bucket bath and some juice when I got some unfortunate news. Over Thanksgiving weekend, there has been a group of criminals attacking people who are walking and riding motorcycles in the rural areas. They beat a teacher who lives near me almost to death with rocks and tried to suffocate him with tape. There have been three other attacks in which two died and some sightings of masked people with rocks. Maybe it is because of the masks, the difficult roads or because we have no police force but not one criminal has been caught. Everyone is instructed to be on guard and not to travel alone, “That means you can’t walk like you do, no. You hear me Jazmín?”

As a Peace Corps volunteer, we theoretically have project partners or a supportive group that we are working within. In reality, every situation is different and I have no official project partner or amazingly helpful group. I work in a little rural school doing environmental and art activities that I will start doing in the bigger town school in January. I am working with the school director to propose and implement a literacy promotion project to get these kids reading. I am also working with youth to reduce waste and collect plastic bottles for a water project in Haiti. While some of this is in the pueblo, my favorite days are going up to the rural school, an hour and a half walk from town.

Hiking and running in the area also keeps me going, a must that I can’t imagine forgoing. Being told that I can’t walk alone is like telling someone who has a car that they are not allowed to use it. It is not a perfect analogy because at least you might have other transportation options. I often have little other than my feet to get me around and I don’t see how my life is going to function for the next year and a half if I really cannot travel solo. I realize that it is petty to complain about not being able to walk or hike alone while people have lost their family members and I don’t want to disrespect the weight of the crime here. It is truly tragic. Such brutal beatings for motorcycles and pocket money are a disgusting manifestation of poverty and greed that I will never understand.

I guess this negative entry should not continue for long so I will finish with my bundle of events that define my current slump. While I was gone, someone stole my bananas and plantains off of my trees in my fenced yard. I have an eye infection that I can’t seem to get rid of after purchasing two very expensive medicated drops. I am continually avoided by a water engineer who should be responsible for a broken aqueduct in a community I am trying to work with, vehicle troubles, my ass! It is also apparently ant season which means that ants march into my house through the windows like a parade and find their home under things like my shortwave radio. I am letting them control my life by my avoiding cooking or dishwashing inside and even having trouble in the bathroom with toothpaste and other toiletries. I planted some basil that sprouted and then was promptly eaten by chickens. I am afraid to ask my landlord if I can make a vegetable garden and compost and even more afraid of the quantity of chicken wire I will have to buy to protect them.

And now I take off my shitty sunglasses and say some nice things. I am swimming in the river and doing a lot of art in my free time with and without kids. Christmas lights are popping up in town, hoo hoo. Red Cross is working on our town aqueduct which means that maybe starting in January, water will come everyday or almost everyday, yeah baby! (There may be a period in December with no water as they are making the switch and I have a secret plan to flee to the capital.) See, my rose colored lenses are coming right on! I hope everyone is doing well and that December brings lots of cookies and family fun!