Tuesday, June 17, 2008
What am I doing here?
Something that's been on my mind a lot lately. What do I want to achieve here in Tanzania? How am I trying to change things? What do I want to leave behind? In short, what am I doing here?
It's not an easy question. A lot of people who join the Peace Corps are idealists, myself included. And we want to leave something concrete behind. A library that we built, a computer lab we founded, a science lab we improved. Or we want to know we did something big and useful: started a health club that trained hundreds of students, or founded a school garden that fed vegetables to the whole school. There's a peculiar pressure in being a Peace Corps volunteer, of wanting to do one's job of teaching well, while also wanting to save the world.
Which brings us back to the question, what am I doing here? On a daily basis, I'm not saving the world. I'm simply teaching. I'm explaining the structure of the ear or the meaning of chemical formulas. I'm correcting notebooks or writing exams. My daily life of teaching is not so different from teaching in the U.S. Nor does it feel particularly heroic. It's simply a job-a good job, a job I enjoy, but a job nonetheless.
I'm not coming in with perseverance and expertise to save a desperate school. My school is well run and is considered the best in the district. Most of the teachers are motivated, and most of the classes are taught. The headmaster is there whenever he doesn't have to travel for business, and he's quick to address any problems the school is having. On some days, I'll look out at the school and think, I'm not needed here. And by this I don't mean that my teaching isn't important, or that I'm not having some kind of influence, but that the school would run perfectly fine without me. Which is a good thing and gives me great hope for the future of my village.
But it does leave me adrift. What is my purpose here? What am I here to achieve? Perhaps more importantly, what do I want to achieve? I'm wandering, searching for a place where my skills will be useful, where I can do something that couldn't have done without me.
Searching. It's a common position in life: searching for meaning, searching for a place. I'll let you know when I find mine.
It's not an easy question. A lot of people who join the Peace Corps are idealists, myself included. And we want to leave something concrete behind. A library that we built, a computer lab we founded, a science lab we improved. Or we want to know we did something big and useful: started a health club that trained hundreds of students, or founded a school garden that fed vegetables to the whole school. There's a peculiar pressure in being a Peace Corps volunteer, of wanting to do one's job of teaching well, while also wanting to save the world.
Which brings us back to the question, what am I doing here? On a daily basis, I'm not saving the world. I'm simply teaching. I'm explaining the structure of the ear or the meaning of chemical formulas. I'm correcting notebooks or writing exams. My daily life of teaching is not so different from teaching in the U.S. Nor does it feel particularly heroic. It's simply a job-a good job, a job I enjoy, but a job nonetheless.
I'm not coming in with perseverance and expertise to save a desperate school. My school is well run and is considered the best in the district. Most of the teachers are motivated, and most of the classes are taught. The headmaster is there whenever he doesn't have to travel for business, and he's quick to address any problems the school is having. On some days, I'll look out at the school and think, I'm not needed here. And by this I don't mean that my teaching isn't important, or that I'm not having some kind of influence, but that the school would run perfectly fine without me. Which is a good thing and gives me great hope for the future of my village.
But it does leave me adrift. What is my purpose here? What am I here to achieve? Perhaps more importantly, what do I want to achieve? I'm wandering, searching for a place where my skills will be useful, where I can do something that couldn't have done without me.
Searching. It's a common position in life: searching for meaning, searching for a place. I'll let you know when I find mine.
# posted by Kristen @ 11:17 PM 
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