Closure

Yesterday I hugged my teary-eyed host mom Elena, gave a firm handshake to host dad Willy, and got on a bus to leave Acuña for good. It was the second time I had to say goodbye to a community; but unlike my departure from Sopachuy and Bolivia, which happened suddenly with no preparation and only a few rushed good-byes, this time I was well prepared. The preceding weeks had been filled with last visits to families and friends, gift exchanges, nostalgic conversations and plenty of logistical and mental preparation. In Bolivia I left so much unfinished, unsaid and undone; in Paraguay I leave with a sense of peace.
The beekeepers' committee threw me a despedida on Sunday, and lunch was a stew of chura: This means every part of a cow except meat, including heart, kidneys, liver, and intestines (a cow actually just has four stomachs, but if I said "stomach" you wouldn't get a sense of the taste. I've eaten this part, called mondongo, on several occasions, and if it's not well-cleaned beforehand it tastes strongly of feces. If it is well-washed it's only an aftertaste). Of course, I ate plenty and with gusto, with a big smile on my face, complimenting the cooks on the delicious meal. They threw the party just for me, after all, and paid for the "meat" themselves. Maybe for those reasons, the chura was actually almost tasty. Or maybe I've just been in this country for too long!
It's been a year and a half since I arrived in Paraguay, and I'm so glad I decided to come. When we were being evacuated from Bolivia we were offered the option to close our service then and there as Returned PCV's; I decided instead to come to Paraguay to finish what I started in Bolivia. I had learned a lot about beekeeping and wanted to continue that work - and in September 2008, as Lehman Bros. and AIG were crashing and it looked like Sarah Palin might be our next vice-president, I wasn't particularly interested in returning to the USA, either. But truly, I decided to finish this because I knew that deep down a fundamental change was beginning to take place inside me, and I wanted to see what it was.
I'm not going to try to describe my service and what I learned from it in a couple of paragraphs. I'm not sure I could do it even if I had ten pages, because some of the ways in which I've changed aren't even apparent to me just yet. But there are a few things I want to get down. Let me start with the idea of "development work" and its relation to PC. When I started this, I had (like many new PCVs) virtually no concrete idea of what a Peace Corps volunteer was supposed to do, but many naive illusions about helping the poor and making a substantive difference in my community (if you want proof of this you can scroll down to view the lofty mission statement I drafted as a trainee in Bolivia). But the reality is much different. Peace Corps volunteers, after an intense 3-month training program of language classes and technical training (for me, that meant beekeeping and some Ag. stuff), are assigned to their sites and basically cut loose: The organization assigns you a community counterpart, but you do not have a boss to report to, or a list of things to accomplish. You are on your own, and you have a great deal of freedom to decide what to do from there. Meanwhile, in your community there is poverty and there are possibilities for development. But most PCVs are recent college graduates, with (initially) little language ability, no cultural understanding, little training in their field, and are under a great deal of stress because of the radical life changes they are experiencing. Under these circumstances, for a PCV to expect to make "sustainable progress" in helping a large number of people improve their economic conditions is wholly unreasonable. That I expected to do so shows that I was naive and arrogant.
There are, however, lots of great things PCVs can do. As a beekeeping volunteer I trained a few people in Acuña in basic hive management skills, and did some neat work with green manures and soil improvement. It is not a great contribution, and no one's economic conditions have been radically altered by the work I did. But the Peace Corps is not a full-fledged development organization. We are not professionals; we're just volunteers. (Truly sustainable development work needs to be done by local professionals. Roland Bunch's Two Ears of Corn is an insightful and informative account of how this work should be done.) If I have overcome the obstacles posed by the set of circumstances I mentioned above, survived two years in a foreign culture living at a subsistence wage, made some lasting friendships with people in our community, and done some work that is of value, then I view my service as truly successful. And for those reasons I left Acuña yesterday with a sense of peace.
But not only for those reasons. A good friend of mine, speaking about her Peace Corps experience, used to say that living as a PCV showed her what her strengths and weaknesses were. I didn't know what she meant then, but now after having had a similar experience I think I understand. In the work I have done as a PCV, I have had as many or more failures as successes. I have not made the kind of difference I thought I could before. But I have been able to do a few things well. A square is only a square because it has limits: There are four sides which surround its area, bounding the square and separating it from what it is not. People are no different, and we must recognize this: We must understand what our limits are, what we can and cannot do. We must know who we are not to understand who we are. I think I'm starting to get that. Failure and success have taught me. Before I left the States, I was having doubts about whether I would be strong enough to do this, and my mom encouraged me, "Andrew, every time you have really wanted to do something, to accomplish something, and have given your best effort, you have succeeded. You'll do so again as a PCV." Well, no, and yes... in fact, giving it my best effort and failing is an experience I had in the Peace Corps, and I'm incredibly grateful for it. The trick is not to get disheartened, learn from your failure and try again, with a smile on your face, grounded by the belief in what you're doing and faith that God's grace will make up for your inadequacies. My failure has helped me have a successful PC experience.
I'll let my friends be the judges of how I've changed. People here tell me all the time how mellow and laid-back I am. I don't remember people ever telling me that before. Maybe it's the long hair. But I think all that has happened, the unexpected catastrophe in Bolivia, readjusting to a second foreign culture, has mellowed me out a lot. I don't get bothered or stressed out, or depressed as much as I used to. The turbulent experience has helped me learn to adjust and adapt to the circumstances without getting too upset. The tranquilo culture of Paraguay and the slow life in the campo have helped, too.
I will miss very much that atmosphere, the peacefulness, the lack of hurry and bustle. I will miss being awakened by roosters crowing in the morning, being surrounded by trees, grass, birds, animals. I'll miss ox-drawn carts, tattered straw hats, dirty, calloused feet, terere, the soothing Paraguayan polka music. I'll miss the sound and flow and spirit of the Guaraní language. I will miss working with angry Africanized bees. I'll miss the solitude. Most of all I'll miss Willy, Elena and Fernando, and the other friends in site I'm leaving behind. Life begins again for me in an exciting new chapter; for them, it will continue to unwind at its even, easy pace, in no hurry, headed nowhere in particular. Maybe that's the way life ought to be. Or maybe it's just another way of life, no better or worse than ours. I know that I'll carry part of that life with me when I go back to the States. I hope I don't lose it.
Many thanks to those who have followed my ramblings over the last two years. I'm sorry that in Paraguay the entries have been so sparse, but having no internet in site it was hard to keep updated. Thanks to friends and family for the support you have offered during this experience; even if we haven't communicated much, or at all during these two years, it is the memories and inspiration from the people I love, that keeps me going through all this.
Next stop is Chile for some hiking in Patagonia; I plan to spend a while wandering around down here in S. America in my new role as a tourist. Should be back in the States around mid-June. Then I'm thinking about grad school to study religions and social justice; but I haven't even begun applying yet and will probably spend the next year or so in Louisville, living with the folks, waiting tables or something. Hope to get a band together and test out the many new songs I've written down here. My music has grown up as much as I have, I think. Can't wait to see all of you, and listen to your stories of what these last couple of years have meant for you and your families.
Looking forward to starting something new. I'm sure many new surprises, successes and failures await. I'll try to meet them and stay cool. Tranquilo, that is.