Six years ago, I left America to join the United States Peace Corps, an experience that would change everything in my life, taking me farther from home than I'd ever been before and further from anything I'd ever known.
I've been back several times since. I traveled West Africa, went back to Nigeria and my village, biked through South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
It was always a lark though. Travel, never work, a distraction leading me on the path to now.
I'm leaving for South Sudan, where I'll be working with Nonviolent Peaceforce as an International Protection Officer. I'll be living and working in one of the camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), victims of what has become a full-fledged civil war only a few short years after the country gained its independence.
At the moment, upwards of 800,000 to one million people have fled their homes due to the fighting. With the rainy season coming on, the threat from malaria, dysentary, and other diseases is increased beyond belief for those crammed into overcrowded camps.
My job will be to work with vulnerable communities - conducting conflict assessments, context analyses, and liaising with local leaders and international organizations to hopefully help in some small way. I won't know more until I'm in country, and by that time, I will probably have limited to non-existent access to the Internet.
Obviously, I've had a lot on my mind. Things that I haven't even fully grappled with yet. If you have any questions, hopefully this entry can answer some of them. Apologies that this will seem very disconnected. It's hard for me to understand these things even as I write them.
1. Safety and Security
Large parts of South Sudan are currently active war zones. The rainy season will wash out roads and make heavy artillery movements difficult.
I'm not so much worried about my own safety, but that may only be because we tend to reduce risk until we face it. The most difficult aspect of preparing to leave this time around are the hidden anxieties at play among everyone I hold close and dear.
For lack of a better way to describe this, I am, essentially, going off to war, and while I won't be fighting, I will still be exposed to all the dangers that accompany conflict.
There's a scene in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, where one of the main characters is driven to the bus yard by his father. Instead of a father-son heart-to-heart, the real possibility that this could be the last they ever see of one another, the protagonist's father is complaining about the car, worrying over the engine and the money he's already paid to get it fixed.
Father and son leave on bad terms.
It's a symptom of masculinity, the inability to reach out and express concern, worry, and fear when men don't cry. The car is a distraction. It's displacement. It's a father who can't or won't express his fears and love for his son because he can't.
My last few days at home was a powder keg. My dad cursed out the neighbor over the phone. He called to apologize. I was aggravated over little decisions, like my mother's simple question over what I'd like for my last supper at home. Dad was overly concerned about how I was going to get to the airport.
They were the little microaggressions of fear and insecurity, anxiety and defensiveness that are layered beneath other arguments. And I don't know if there's any easy way to deal with them.
2. Home
When I left for Peace Corps, it was a two-year commitment. There was an understanding that it would end. There's no such guarantee this time around.
Over the last six years, I have spent several months at home between adventures and opportunities. I am so, so, so fortunate to have the ability to do that, even if (at times) it does drive me crazy to be stuck in rural Indiana.
I've been moving further and further away from the idea of America as my home over the last few years, and I think my parents have slowly, albeit painfully, realized that I am never coming back. I was gone nearly three years from January 2008 until September 2010. I was at home for several months before leaving again for Washington DC, Nigeria, London, Turkey, and South Africa. I came back for a few months before leaving again to pursue job opportunities in DC, and now I'm off for South Sudan.
I don't know where I can claim as my own anymore, and as much as I will be working with displaced people, I often feel displaced myself.
I always have a home to go back to. I know that, and I'm more fortunate than most in the world. But when you've carried your home on your back for years, the idea of permanence fades. I've begun to wonder if I'll ever find a home again, or if I've permanently ingrained mobility into my life.
It's scary to think of choosing a place when there's still so much to see.
3. Career
From everything I've read and everything I've done, this new job seems to be exactly what I want to do.
And that is the most frightening thing I've ever experienced.
What if I fail? What if I'm no good? What if everything that I've been moving towards for the past six years is broken and shattered? Where do I go then?
There's someone very special in my life who pushed me to follow my dreams. Really pushed me in ways that no one else ever has. I'm so grateful for her for that.
But following your dreams is terrifying. Because what if you succeed? The fear of failure can keep us in one place - a safe place, secure. It's easier to have dreams when you know you'll never accomplish them. But when someone presents the ladder to help you reach for the star, you begin to wonder - what happens after? Working for your dreams is work, and beyond that, there are new dreams, new things to work for.
Maybe there are some Buddhists present who can give me better answers. I should be content with what I have, right? Then why am I forever yearning?
4. Next Steps
There's so much I want to see and do in this world, and as I've gotten older, I realize that I have to make choices. Because it's nice to have all the possibilities open, but I can't sit and stare at possibilities. I have to make choices - choices that close some doors but open others. There's no looking back. As Robert Frost wrote:
Oh I kept the first [road] for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We often forget the last stanza. The narrator isn't saying the road less traveled was better, or that he was better for taking it. The road he took made all the difference, but still he tells it with a sigh, because he will never know truly know the difference.
Time is a river. We'll keep it in the flood. It carries us all the same.
Best to get a little bit of a swim in then, I guess.
I've been back several times since. I traveled West Africa, went back to Nigeria and my village, biked through South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
It was always a lark though. Travel, never work, a distraction leading me on the path to now.
I'm leaving for South Sudan, where I'll be working with Nonviolent Peaceforce as an International Protection Officer. I'll be living and working in one of the camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), victims of what has become a full-fledged civil war only a few short years after the country gained its independence.
At the moment, upwards of 800,000 to one million people have fled their homes due to the fighting. With the rainy season coming on, the threat from malaria, dysentary, and other diseases is increased beyond belief for those crammed into overcrowded camps.
My job will be to work with vulnerable communities - conducting conflict assessments, context analyses, and liaising with local leaders and international organizations to hopefully help in some small way. I won't know more until I'm in country, and by that time, I will probably have limited to non-existent access to the Internet.
Obviously, I've had a lot on my mind. Things that I haven't even fully grappled with yet. If you have any questions, hopefully this entry can answer some of them. Apologies that this will seem very disconnected. It's hard for me to understand these things even as I write them.
1. Safety and Security
Large parts of South Sudan are currently active war zones. The rainy season will wash out roads and make heavy artillery movements difficult.
I'm not so much worried about my own safety, but that may only be because we tend to reduce risk until we face it. The most difficult aspect of preparing to leave this time around are the hidden anxieties at play among everyone I hold close and dear.
For lack of a better way to describe this, I am, essentially, going off to war, and while I won't be fighting, I will still be exposed to all the dangers that accompany conflict.
There's a scene in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, where one of the main characters is driven to the bus yard by his father. Instead of a father-son heart-to-heart, the real possibility that this could be the last they ever see of one another, the protagonist's father is complaining about the car, worrying over the engine and the money he's already paid to get it fixed.
Father and son leave on bad terms.
It's a symptom of masculinity, the inability to reach out and express concern, worry, and fear when men don't cry. The car is a distraction. It's displacement. It's a father who can't or won't express his fears and love for his son because he can't.
My last few days at home was a powder keg. My dad cursed out the neighbor over the phone. He called to apologize. I was aggravated over little decisions, like my mother's simple question over what I'd like for my last supper at home. Dad was overly concerned about how I was going to get to the airport.
They were the little microaggressions of fear and insecurity, anxiety and defensiveness that are layered beneath other arguments. And I don't know if there's any easy way to deal with them.
2. Home
When I left for Peace Corps, it was a two-year commitment. There was an understanding that it would end. There's no such guarantee this time around.
Over the last six years, I have spent several months at home between adventures and opportunities. I am so, so, so fortunate to have the ability to do that, even if (at times) it does drive me crazy to be stuck in rural Indiana.
I've been moving further and further away from the idea of America as my home over the last few years, and I think my parents have slowly, albeit painfully, realized that I am never coming back. I was gone nearly three years from January 2008 until September 2010. I was at home for several months before leaving again for Washington DC, Nigeria, London, Turkey, and South Africa. I came back for a few months before leaving again to pursue job opportunities in DC, and now I'm off for South Sudan.
I don't know where I can claim as my own anymore, and as much as I will be working with displaced people, I often feel displaced myself.
I always have a home to go back to. I know that, and I'm more fortunate than most in the world. But when you've carried your home on your back for years, the idea of permanence fades. I've begun to wonder if I'll ever find a home again, or if I've permanently ingrained mobility into my life.
It's scary to think of choosing a place when there's still so much to see.
3. Career
From everything I've read and everything I've done, this new job seems to be exactly what I want to do.
And that is the most frightening thing I've ever experienced.
What if I fail? What if I'm no good? What if everything that I've been moving towards for the past six years is broken and shattered? Where do I go then?
There's someone very special in my life who pushed me to follow my dreams. Really pushed me in ways that no one else ever has. I'm so grateful for her for that.
But following your dreams is terrifying. Because what if you succeed? The fear of failure can keep us in one place - a safe place, secure. It's easier to have dreams when you know you'll never accomplish them. But when someone presents the ladder to help you reach for the star, you begin to wonder - what happens after? Working for your dreams is work, and beyond that, there are new dreams, new things to work for.
Maybe there are some Buddhists present who can give me better answers. I should be content with what I have, right? Then why am I forever yearning?
4. Next Steps
There's so much I want to see and do in this world, and as I've gotten older, I realize that I have to make choices. Because it's nice to have all the possibilities open, but I can't sit and stare at possibilities. I have to make choices - choices that close some doors but open others. There's no looking back. As Robert Frost wrote:
Oh I kept the first [road] for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We often forget the last stanza. The narrator isn't saying the road less traveled was better, or that he was better for taking it. The road he took made all the difference, but still he tells it with a sigh, because he will never know truly know the difference.
Time is a river. We'll keep it in the flood. It carries us all the same.
Best to get a little bit of a swim in then, I guess.
3 comments:
Dear Sterling,
Be safe in your new journey, on your new road and with your tasks. As for the yearning and the fear, I think it's the heady stuff of trying to to the best that you can. Woody Allen said that 80 percent of success is just showing up. I know you have the other 20 in you. Holding you in our hearts. Come visit some fond old people in North Carolina some day. All the best, Dana Fisher
you, wonderful full of wonder friend,
when you won the wander of wandering around? while wondering about wonders?
keep it up, keep your eyes opened as wide as your heart is (uhhh, that´s a huge amount, beware)and live and feel to the fullest, so take care please; apart from your job there, you have the mission of previewing encounters where to enlighten our hungry minds with your experiences.
Be sterlingly happy your way, !!
Mua!***
Always remember that you are my hero!
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