Two Years

It turns out we do become experts!

Ok, so expert is a bit of an exaggeration, but it does feel good to have entered this school year with a better handle on how the year would go. Many asked me at the end of my first year if I wished the experience was over at that point. I contemplated, reflecting over the hardest part of my service between the one year mark in country and when I had completed one year in my service. It is true, there were a lot of bumps and bruises, many difficulties in various aspects of life: physical, emotional, and professional. But my answer was always the same: I am grateful to have another year to improve what I can about my job.

Now I understand even more about how important this second year is in terms of service. We began the school year in February and although I started over in some sense by choosing almost all new teachers to work with, I had a much better idea of how to explain my job, how to enter into the classroom, and what would work in terms of my classroom role. I certainly am no expert, but I feel much more prepared. Though many days I do feel like I’m still figuring it out, I have felt more equipped to respond to newer volunteers’ questions of advice.

The tough part is that this experience of two years makes me very critical not only of aid, but of shorter term volunteer work. I spent the first three months in site simply absorbing the culture around me, getting to know the school system, observing and quietly noting important aspects of the society in which I now live. The work came later and as I have said, many failures and learning experiences filled my first year of service. In my second year there will be failure, but maybe not quite as big. There will be challenges, but I may be better prepared to navigate those situations. There will be frustrations, but I hopefully now know what to spend my time worrying about and what to give up on. Being a part of this process has made me see how development work or any foreign work really cannot be done on a short term scale.

This is certainly not to say that short term volunteers have not made a positive impact in the work that they have done. I am simply grateful to have a chance to do it all again, to start my second year with experience under my belt and feeling more prepared.

For now, I am living day by day, planning my work over the next 7 months. For those who wonder what my next steps are, you will just have to wait a bit longer. This second year has given me the opportunity to complete many new projects and I need to fulfill my work to the best of my abilities before thinking about what my next moves are back in the U.S. Two months into the school year I am very optimistic about my work this year. Happy 2015!