Serendipity: Presence over Performance

Not to generalize, but in America, many people find their worth in what they do. When people first meet each other one of the first questions to be asked is almost always, “what do you do?”. We like to brag about our busyness and even if we aren’t busy, we want others to believe we are so that we seem important and valued. Coming out of four years of being a student athlete where my motto tended to be, “sorry I can’t do xyz because I’m busy with soccer/studying/working”, one of the many reasons I joined the Peace Corps was to detach from this pace of life at least for a couple years. I chose to go to an African country because I wanted a more relaxed, relational lifestyle. However, I also chose to be an education volunteer because I knew myself and I knew I needed at least a little structure in my life. I was hoping to find a nice balance.

I’m not an expert in a lot of things, but one thing I am an expert in is being afraid of the unknown. As the school year was winding down I began thinking (aka stressing/worrying) about the vacation period and what I would do with my time. Teaching had become my life here. I took on a pretty heavy teaching load and then also began an English Club in my town as well as joined a girls soccer team and then just trying to live and cook and clean here takes more time than in the States and so despite my attempt to move to Madagascar to slow down, I was busy. And I loved it. I fell into the trap of thinking that as long as I was doing something all the time then I was important and valued in my community. But soon all of this was going to end and I had no clue what I was going to do for the next couple months. And that was terrifying. I began questioning my effectiveness as a volunteer; I retreated to my room often trying to think of what I could do or plan next so that I could stay “busy” for this next season; I felt super self-conscious about my Malagasy language skills thinking that since I have been in country for a year now then I should be better than I was; I felt like my community was constantly judging me. I just felt useless. It was a rough couple of weeks. And the worst part was that I was still working at this time. All these fears and insecurities were all based off of the unknown of the upcoming season.

BUT per usual, so many of these fears/insecurities were unfounded. The first day of my official “summer vacation”, I woke up and like normal I went to my market to grab breakfast and get coffee. Since I wasn’t teaching and wasn’t in a rush, I had time to just sit and chat for a while with my coffee woman. Shortly after breakfast then a friend poked her head in my window and asked me to join her as she went down to the river to wash clothes. I spent the morning helping her wash clothes and got to join over a dozen other women who were doing the same thing as this is a common Saturday chore. As I left many of them thanked me for talking with them. I returned from the river around lunch time where I joined my host mom, dad, and two brothers for lunch. In the afternoon then I joined a few friends from my girls’ soccer team and we watched the boys play soccer until sunset.

I wasn’t teaching. I wasn’t really working on anything. I didn’t accomplish much. But I was present.

As a Peace Corps volunteer it’s so easy to get into the mindset that when we’re at site we always have to be doing something useful or productive for our community. There’s always this inner pressure to perform. Sometimes its pressure to be the best teacher, or pressure to start the best projects, or to have the most clubs, or work with the most teachers.

That first day of vacation was serendipitous though; I expected to be lonely, bored, and a disappointment to my community when I was no longer teaching every day. What that first day though and many of the following days have taught me is that more than anything, people appreciate your presence. They appreciate my effort to speak their language. They appreciate me attempting to integrate into their culture. They appreciate me allowing them to share their lives and me doing the same. They appreciate a small greeting followed by a smile. It’s always a constant battle of feeling like my performance is what people value. But if I’ve learned anything over this past year, it’s that 9 times out of 10 people just want your presence. Your friendship. Your time. Your heart.

School’s been out for me for about a month now and in that time I was able to attend a funeral in my community and see all of the culture surrounding a death. I attended a day long celebration at my church. I started a girls club at my middle school. I’ve had a dozen little kids crowd into my house several afternoons as they colored with my crayons. I had time to practice with my soccer team. I sat and talked with people I usually don’t have time to talk to. All things that had I still been teaching I wouldn't have had time to do. But then I was fully present. The pressure to perform is very real for many Peace Corps volunteers but at the end of the day what I’m starting to learn is that our presence tends to be a greater gift than any other acts we can perform. As an American that’s a hard concept to grasp but one that’s simply so beautiful. Presence over performance. It's a hard balance to find but one worth pursuing. 

“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”   
― Mother Teresa