No More Chasing

In my desire to settle into my life in Panama and my role as a Peace Corps volunteer, I have begun to settle for some things that I never thought I would. It has been my desire since day one to establish genuine friendships but after almost a year in the country, I am tired of trying and ready to accept that they may not come. Thankfully, my new site has not tested and tried me in the way that my old one did. During the early days in that locale, I was the subject of gossip, ridicule, and scorn. Here, though I am spared the hazing rituals, I am basically ignored. I greet people. I participate in activities. I suggest outings. But life in a regional capital is busy and people are consumed with their families, their careers, and their studies. A gringa who will be gone in a year barely makes their radar screen.


During the Peace Corps application process, they are constantly trying to assess your ability to cope with loneliness. And once in country, they do their best to equip you for what I have come to call the Peace Corps PILL - Pessimism, Isolation, Loneliness, and Listlessness. So my experience is certainly not unique to me. And I’m guessing that it’s not so unique to just about anyone who is trying to serve others, be it in the workplace, in their community or within their own family. There are times in this life when, no matter how many people surround you, you are alone.

So while I would like to have a social life that goes beyond polite greetings and brief banter, I have decided that at a certain point, trying actually becomes sadder than settling. I am not giving up on the idea of meaningful friendships in Panama. I am simply accepting their absence at this moment.

I am constantly alert to the fact that such a way of life is the perfect breeding ground for inappropriate behavior and bad habits. My counselor training tells me that distractions can be dangerous because they can turn into compulsions and addictions and all of these things interfere with our ability to have healthy relationships. The right thing to do is to get in touch with my longings, to sit in that empty space, know it, name it, and invite God to join me in it. But I now question the intensity at which I have done this in the past. I have at times been “spiritual” to the point of self-injury. I would ignore my flesh and chase God until it hurt.

So when the side effects of the Peace Corps PILL recently started to resurface, I caught myself emailing, web surfing, reading, writing, and watching a lot of TV, all in English. I also started burning up cyberspace, skyping my friends and family to talk about nothing. These activities are not bad but they pull me out of Panama. They are a distraction. And they decrease the likelihood that I will find that fulfilling Panamanian friendship or achieve the elusive perfect Spanish – neither of which are guaranteed anyway.

So do I go back to my old tactic of discarding the distractions in favor of pushing into the loneliness? Sure, it brought me closer to God but it also made me that much more lonely here on earth. Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible for one to chase God too hard. Especially if that chase takes me out of the world that I inhabit, and especially if chasing God makes me inhabit it without truly living in it.

So while I am waiting for Panama to invite me in, maybe a little connection to my U.S. life is not so bad. Panama may never offer me anymore than it does right now. And if that’s the case, I have to accept it – even settle for it. I guess that is what serving is really all about. Giving with no expectation of anything in return, even friendship.

So what am I going to do? I am going to allow myself to be a little distracted. I am going to keep surfing, skyping, emailing, and watching reruns of Law & Order and House. And as for my relationship with God, it is time for me to trade my begging for accepting and wallowing for worshipping. After all, He is not running so I don’t have to chase Him.

Grace and Peace,

Anita

Its Over

The nationwide strike is over. The people of Panama have the ears of their leaders and both sides are working towards some reasonable solutions. See post below for more info. I am still in Panama and feeling contenta y tranquila.
Grace and Peace,
Anita

My Panama, My Adventure

It all started when Marina came to visit me. Sharing the country, the culture, and the Peace Corps experience with her gave me such a sense of pride in what is now My Panama. It has taken almost a year but I am finally “in like” with this country. Many of the things that irritated me in the beginning are now endearing and the rest are routine. Washing my clothes by hand is no longer a chore but a welcome upper-body workout. The weather is not hot. The weather simply is. And I am not just surviving my Peace Corps experience. I am experiencing it.

I have been in my new site for almost three months and I am really beginning to feel a sense of purpose. I provide training and consulting services to an NGO (non-governmental organization, e.g., nonprofit) that does some amazing work in helping families to overcome poverty while combating deforestation. With strategic planning in full swing and a leadership training series launched, I was a dozen different shades of excited before the unrest started to make the news.  The reasons for the clashes are complicated and frankly as a Peace Corps volunteer, none of my business. I am nonetheless affected by it.

The first alert was called for one particular region of the country, then another. Now, every volunteer in the Panama is on alert. For the most part, our orders are to be aware, to be still, and to be prepared. Hopefully, things will settled down sometime soon but if they do not, the place that I am finally “in like” with could quickly become the place where I used to live. The daily walks to the market to buy one tomato, the year-round summer wardrobe, the pink “rug” that I painted onto my dungeon – I mean kitchen – floor… it could all be a thing of the past, long before I am ready to say goodbe and there is nothing I can do about it.

In the middle of all of this uncertainty, I am sure of two things: 1) it is all worth it, and 2) for as long as there is breath in my body, my adventure will not end. Whether it is sooner or later, I will one day say farewell to My Panama. But whether in Latin America, the U.S., or some other part of the world, my adventure shall continue.