It seems only fitting that after more than a year in Malawi I make a visit home. There have been times when I missed my family tremendously but now I feel I am at a good point to go home and not feel hesitant to go back to Malawi. We recently had our Mid-service training for Peace Corps. This is a time when all of the people from the health sector that I trained with more than a year ago come together to discuss our experiences from this past year at our respective sites and our future. We all looked at a photo taken just days before we swore in and moved to our sites. We made comments like “I looked so clean” or “I looked so innocent” or “I had no idea what I was getting myself into”. But in general this was the best training we had yet. It seemed with were all in a similar place of contentment for the journey we are experiencing. I say that we were not sure of what we were getting ourselves into not in a negative way, but how can you be able to predict the experience of living in a village for 2 years. I remember that feeling of anticipation and hesitation when we were leaving for site more than a year ago. At first we had the awkwardness of training with 38 other individuals who I knew nothing about and living in a village with a host family for 4 weeks. But by the end of the 2 month training, I had a new family. Not only just the peace corps family, but my home stays family as well. When we returned after being at site for 3 months which is called ‘Introduction Service Training’ because our first 3 months at site we are suppose to find out the needs of our community and not start projects. At this training we all seemed still a little uneasy not because it was so hard to live in these conditions (even though it’s not easy) but because we still facing the unknown. At that point we had survived in the village setting while accomplishing the following: finding a way to feed ourselves without modern conveniences, keep ourselves relatively healthy and figured out how to travel semi-successfully around Malawi. It may not seem like a lot but it seems enough to be proud of at that point. Now our MST we seemed to have made at least some progress at our sites, some more than others. But the main contentment arose from the acceptance of things that may have succeeded while making some peace for the things that didn’t quite work out. The next step is to think of what is next after the Peace Corps. Where will we end up, what will be our next step? We have learned to survive in the Malawi, but will we be able to assimilate back into our society. There is a change I think that happens to all of us while here. As a volunteer you have the unique perspective of seeing what really happens on the ground on the ‘development’ side. We see real poverty, injustices and suffering. I realize that these things all exist in America, but the level of reality here is slightly higher, with less opportunities for change.
As I make this trip home and wonder how I will be comfortable with how comfortable my life is in America. I’m grateful to be an American, to be educated, to have been raised well, to always have food to eat and to never really experience injustice like I see in Malawi. But I can’t help but wonder, what would my life had been like if I were born in a developing country where the sad statistics I read every day were my reality. 51% of children in the central region of Malawi suffer but stunting due to a lack of nutritious food. The illiteracy rate is almost directly correlated with the pervious statistic.
But out of all this sadness I experience real emotions that make me be a stronger person I think. I am not the same person I was a year ago, but that doesn’t mean that I have become bitter or angry at the injustices I see every day (though someday It’s hard). I feel more motivated to work hard to make a small dent in the future of Malawi. I feel more confident, because I have stepped outside of myself to see myself in the good and ugly. I am grateful for the simple things in life while less distracted on thinking“If I had this” instead I try to think ‘I’m so grateful because here in Malawi I have…” Even though I have so little in Malawi vs. what I had in America. I still have more than my neighbors. I am grateful that I get to experience this simple life, where I waste little and try to leave more. As I make this journey home after 14 months of being in America I will try my best to see how lucky I am to have all that I have to spend time with loved ones and staying present in this moment right now. I know I can say after this year that I have changed, but I am still me at the core.
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