Star of Bethleham

January 10^th , 2012

            Today has begun my rounds of goodbyes here in Dulce Nombre, and suddenly this leaving Honduras thing has become a lot more real. The past few weeks I have known that I was going to be leaving Honduras but instead of being sad that I was leaving my adopted home I was excited to be seeing my family and friends again, not to mention the ability to flush toilet paper again (I am not sure why this is such a running thread in my blogs…). I would lay awake at night thinking about all the old joys that I would again be able to experience while I was back in the states and those that I was going to spend time with during these said experiences. While I am still really excited to be going back home with my family and friends, the bittersweet feelings are definitely starting to take ahold of me. While we will not know for around another month or so whether or not Honduras will be deemed safe enough for us to return the overall feeling that I, along with most other volunteers I have talked to, is that PCH’s future does not look bright at least not for the current volunteers.

            With so much up in the air right now my mind is constantly changing and swirling about the different possibilities for my life/new adventure. While it is enjoyable to have such a blank slate open to me right now with the whole world at my feet and literally every path open, this same wide openness can also drive me crazy. We Americans like to have plans and this not having a plan thing is strangely difficult to deal with, it remind me of how I was feeling when I first got into my site and had absolutely nothing to do and no projects on the horizon. While now, after almost four months in site, I have done so much work and started to lay the foundation of so many projects. Much of this work was simply spending time with people and letting them get to know me and earning their trust so that I would have them behind me throughout the rest of my service. I know that all of this work has not gone to waste because in every conversation I had with the people I was learning as were they, however it does feel like the work will not be able to reach its full potential and wasted potential is one of the things that I hate most in this world. A great unknown has presented itself to me in the forms of many things. It has presented itself to me in the form of the potential projects that could be done here in the future, it has presented itself to me in the form of the potential lives that I could touch, and it has presented itself to me in the form of the potential improvements that I could help to make in my community. The common wisdom in PC is that the second year in site is the most fun because you finally know exactly what you are doing and your projects are finally starting to be accomplished. I am starting to fear that I may never get to experience these things.

            As stated in one of my previous blogs, if PCH is not reopened back up to the volunteer population, my likely next path would be to try to find a job near or in Chicago teaching at an elementary school with a high Spanish speaking and low income population. While I am really excited about that possibility, I am also saddened that I may not be able to complete my 2 years of PC service. In PC there is this attitude of how much can I handle before I call it quits/look how tough I am, though it may be a secret attitude that not many volunteers will admit to I do think it is present. We as volunteers like to experience hardships, whether we think it is part of the job or whether we have a misplaced feeling of the white man’s burden I do not know but there is no doubt in my mind that a certain pride factor places an important role in all of our service here in Peace Corps. So what might just happen with this current situation is that I will not be able to finish my 2 years here, sure I could always transfer to another country and begin my two years over again but just being honest I do not really want to do the waiting, the training, and the mixing in to my community all over again. So it seems like I may be “quitting” PC though it sure does not feel like it, it feel like we were all just given a fairly bad deal and we have to make the best of it and so that is what I am intending to do.

            I will readily admit that this secret pride factor will make an impact on my decisions in the future because I want to finish up my PC service. It seems dumb but I want that R before the PCV (aka RPCV, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer). Thinking about this issue and realizing exactly how I felt about this over the last couple of weeks has let me learn more about my real motives for joining the PC. I think that I have joined the PC for all of the usual responses, I want to help people, I want to gain a better perspective on my life and what I have, I want to learn a new culture and a new language. However I realize now that I also joined because I wanted to do something that not many other people in this world have accomplished, and I wanted to do it for my own pride. I wanted to do it for my own glory, while I am not extremely proud of this fact it is true and I am glad that I have realized it. Even though most of my motives are well intentioned there is also that small portion that is for my own glory and I do not like that. One of the reasons I think getting a teaching job in Chicago is so appealing to me right now is because I know that I help people without necessarily having a motive of doing these good deeds for my own glory (By the way, I am pretty sure that the previous paragraph is an example of the odd state that my mind is currently in but I do think that what I wrote has some truth to it).  

            This past Sunday, Fr. Henry gave a nice sermon about stars in relation to the story of the three wise men and how they followed the star to find baby Jesus. He preached that we need to realize when God puts stars in our own lives and that we need to have the faith to follow them, no matter where they lead (He also preached that many of us are ourselves stars and have people following us however we do not realize it, but we must realize it and therefore be the best star that we can be for the sake of those following us). I know that God has put my star out there and all I need to do is to follow that star. However that is a lot easier said than done, when I look up into my figurative night sky I see millions of stars and I can follow any of them. The only problem is that only one of them is God’s star, the star that I need to follow. So which star do I follow, the one that leads me back to Honduras, the one that leads me to Chicago, or the one that leads me to another whole country altogether? At this moment I do not know but with my faith in God, that night sky full of stars will become one single star and all I have to do is follow it.