Gravity and Purpose

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A long time ago, I was on a date with a guy teaching me to drive his Jeep on the beach. He asked me if I wanted to do donuts. The sand and water we were flinging off the tires felt wild and adventurous, but I hesitated.



“I feel like I’m going to flip it!” I sang, in awe of the general experience.



“Nah,” he said, “You’d feel gravity shift.”



I’d feel gravity shift. The memory came rushing back as the minibus swerved across the highway with a nauseating lean to one side. It wasn’t like that feeling of dropping, or even of inertia. The feeling was a sickening sideways tummy-tumble that let you know you’d be going home in a flag-draped coffin had you not strapped in.



This time, the driver, who may have been drunk, corrected just enough to save my family that burden. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.



Every time I board a bus in Tanzania (which is all the time, considering I’ve travelled cross-country on a monthly basis for several months now), I can’t help but notice which fixture of the vehicle would cause my fatal head injury. Would it be the already broken window? The metal handles that far-too many people grasp for stability in the jam-packed space? Maybe the road itself. My friend recently threw herself out of a shattering windshield to avoid being crushed as her bus flipped across the road. She was lucky. Other’s weren't.



I always demand a seatbelt. It’s so incredibly uncommon here that everyone snickers. When I pull the lone working seat belt out from behind the filthy seat cushions, it’s covered in grime, often jammed from sitting in its locked position for several years. I use it anyways, and when I get off the bus to wash my hands the water runs off my fingers in brown streams. Even with a seatbelt, I pray it’s not my time.



Lately, it’s felt like gravity has shifted in other ways too. Like my stomach might fall out of my butt if I remember how many more months I’ll be pushed to my limit. Sometimes, when I’m on a run or walking through the hills, I close my eyes and pretend that I'll open them and be back at Lake Johnson Nature Park, spring peeking through the trees and ducks choosing their nesting grounds. I usually trip, cry a little, and then I keep running. I just keep running.

I know this is all a little negative. I’m sorry. I really, truly am sorry for feeling so down on things right now. In these difficult moments, I realize how weak I am in comparison to my villagers. I see anger, aggression, and hostility in myself that I hate. There’s an anxiety that lives at the pit of my stomach and the slightest trigger brings it raging forth in my speech and my actions. I worry that this little bit of darkness inside me is who I truly am, that trying times bring out our real selves. But if I get caught up in that guilt, in that critical analysis of myself, I surely won’t succeed, so I push it away.

Having come in as a class of 52 PCVs that's now only 42, I'm not alone in feeling this way, but I know the magic will return. The sparkle in the experience hasn’t evaporated, it’s just shifted for now. Theoretically, I’m doing great. My projects have been successful and I’ve accomplished a lot. I’m active in my village and in my Peace Corps community. I’m organizing wellness retreats for other struggling volunteers, attending Food Security Committee meetings, and working on that apple tree grant for 2500 new saplings in my village. Still, every morning when I thank the sun for shining through my little yoga practice, I force myself to remember, “earth beneath me, air within me, sky above me.” No matter the chaos, the shift in gravity, the isolation, dangers, and monotonous requirements for basic survival—no matter how sh*tty I feel on the inside, this world has given me an opportunity in which it will continue to uphold me. Just. Breathe.

Sometimes I get by going on long walks and day dreaming about home.The other day I spent an hour day-dreaming about what it would be like to have a hair-cut. How those new hipster salons will offer you a craft beer while you wait. How they use warm-running water to wash your hair and ask you simple English questions that you don’t have to think too hard to answer. How there’s an element of customer service and an expectation to leave clients satisfied. How you can leave the salon and feel like yourself, or feel like someone new. How you can actually express who you are through your appearance, your choice of clothing, maybe even demonstrating the shape of your body by wearing pants (it’s a novel idea, I know.). I stopped day dreaming and cut open a peach, scooping out the worms and eating the good parts. Then I noticed the goats were eating the neighbors corn, covered up my pants with a skirt, went to move them, and tore off the skin of my toe dragging a downed tree across the grass. It bled so bad I worried I’d run out of bandaids. If I ordered more today, it would be six weeks before my medical re-supply arrived in Njombe town. Such is life. I carried on.



Loren reminded me the other night, through a desperate phone call, to remember my purpose—something that had been so obvious to me at first, but has slipped away as gravity has shifted.



“Ask yourself why you’re there. Why it was worth it to leave behind all you have here.”



Isn’t it surprising that it’s been so long since I really, truly asked myself that question?



He reminded me that my brain-hamsters are confused and frustrated in this stillness between large projects. That the aggression I feel well up inside me is my psyche fighting to survive challenges that might defeat the average person. He reminded me that I’m a fighter—something I’d been proud of in my past life. He told me to read more—to keep my mind learning, seeking, and communicating, even in isolation. And mostly, he told me to reflect on my purpose. On my Why.



This week’s project? Tranquilize the brain hamsters, rediscover purpose, survive the bus rides.



Let’s all do it together.



Xo,



Kate

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Photos

NuFudge!
The most thoughtful Valentine's package from my dietician friend who created this healthy brand of chocolate! SO GOOD!

Finished my second garden plot!
Finally tilled and built the front garden- waiting for seeds to sprout.

The tears of a thousand PCVs!!
lol-- didn't realize how I had stained the floor crying until I saw the puddle