Reflections On The Peace Corps

The Peace Corps - A life changing experience right?

By far, this is the most common thing we hear from people back home - “Ohhhh the Peace Corps. What a life changing experience for the two of you.” While I certainly agree that the Peace Corps is life changing, what exactly does that statement mean? How is it life changing? What have we learned? Well, these are some rather broad and difficult questions that I am going to attempt to articulate answers to in an orderly fashion. Brace yourself, there will probably be a significant amount of cheesiness, a touch of ranting, and hopefully a somewhat enlightened ending. I guess we will see where my rambling takes us.... Also, most of the pictures are random pictures from throughout our service here.

The inside of our kitchen hut. We have about 2000 sq ft of floor space as you can see.

Don’t Worry. Be Happy

We are so much more relaxed than we used to be. Without a doubt, Lindsey and I both agree that this is an area in which we have changed the most. 

Americans in general are obsessed with time (I’m not saying it is a bad thing, but it is definitely true). You probably don’t even realize it because almost everyone back home is, but if you come to a third world or developing country, you will immediately notice that most people simply don’t care about time like you do. It often seems that for no reason at all, you are forced to wait for hours on end. Things take a long time to get done. People walk at a pace that is comparable to a babies crawl (interesting fact - the world’s slowest walking pace was awarded to one of the villages that we stayed at on our kayaking trip in Malawi). Things in general just move much, much slower on this side of the world, especially in the villages - village chillage as we call it. For volunteers in general, accepting this fact is probably the hardest thing we have to do in two years. You can try to fight it all you want, but you will only end up frustrated and let down if you refuse to embrace the slowness of things.

Our village threw a going away party for us and afterwards everyone wanted to shake our hands.

Hence, as it is not practical to expect timeliness in any shape or form here, we have gotten used to waiting for things. Waiting no longer “kills” me as it used to when I would get so worked up about lines or traffic. I certainly still don’t like it, but I accept it as something I can’t control and don’t get angry about it anymore. Living in a village absolutely teaches you, whether you like it or not, to go with the flow.

Being Disconnected Is Awesome

My daily round of soccer.

Have you ever said, “Man, I need a vacation to get away from things” or “I need to unplug” as a vision of a secluded beach with a pina colada in your hand floats through your head? No emails. No news. No worries. It seems like a nice thought right? Well, imagine being disconnected for two years. Now, we are not exactly on a beach, although there is plenty of sand, and we don’t exactly have any pina coladas, although we could probably make one, but we are certainly disconnected. Lindsey and I literally never hear the news and more or less we have no idea what is going on in the world. We don’t have a TV, don’t have a radio, and have very slow and limited access to the internet and social media.

At first, it was incredibly difficult for me. I was used to having automatic email notifications on my phone and instant access to lightening fast internet from anywhere. It takes time, but you get used to not having “a connection” and actually begin to enjoy being away from the hustle and bustle of the internet, news, TV, and the ridiculous amount of time filler activities that we used to feel the compulsive need to do. 

Humbleness, Humbleness, Humbleness

Experiencing poverty and living (not just visiting) with the people embedded in it is a truly humbling experience. You begin to feel for the people you know, and begin to understand why things are they way they are in their lives.

Americans in general have no idea how good they have it - and believe me, I was no exception to that. You might think you do, but unless you live in poverty (and by that I mean that you live on less that $1 a day), you simply don’t. In America, we take so many things for granted that people here can only dream of - an excellent education system, a car, a house, electricity, a toilet, running water, food, shoes, loving parents, an honest spouse. When you become part of a society where the majority of the people are lacking those things, it changes you. You become so much more aware and thankful to be born into a society that strives to produce a hard work ethic and leadership in its people. You become thankful for all of things you had growing up that none of these kids have and probably never will. You learn to appreciate hot showers, washing machines, and air conditioning on a whole new level, but also realize how easy it is to live without them.

Lindsey and I attempting to pound Mahangu - their staple food made of corn.

The bottom line is - we as Americans have so much. We have so, so much to be thankful for. After being here for two years, it would be impossible to ever forget that. Which leads me into the next topic.....

Complaining 

Imagine that you are a kid whose parents both died of AIDS, your sister and brother were killed by malaria, you are living with your cousin’s uncle’s friend, you get one meal a day if you are lucky, and you go to a school where you don’t understand the language that is a 5 mile walk away from your mud hut where you sleep on the ground at night in the dirt. Whew....  sounds like a rough life right? Well, we have a few students who fit that description perfectly and parts of that description apply to nearly everyone in Namibia. 

Lindsey getting bombarded by kids before her run around the village.

Do you think these kids complain? Never. And that is the amazing thing - people here don’t complain. When I find myself wanting to scream while waiting in a ridiculous line or while there are 50 people crammed into a 12 person van with me, I always calm myself down by looking around at the people. They are just chillin. No one is stressing. No one is worried. No one is complaining - ever. 

Overall, the lives of villagers are 100x harder than my life was growing up. My life was so easy in America. I had every advantage, every privilege that one could think of. What right do I have to complain about anything? Lindsey and I both have learned that in most cases complaining serves no purpose and does nothing positive for anyone. You might read that and say “Well, DUH Tim.”, but getting over the need to complain when you don’t get what you want is not as easy as it sounds. It takes times. 

The elders of our village, right before they cut the string to officially open the playground.

For us, complaining is one of the most annoying things for us to be around now. When we meet a newbie volunteer who still complains about waiting, Lindsey and I just laugh at their perilous attempts to speed things up. I can’t hold it against them though, they still have yet to be “pounded into submission” by the speed of things here. As I said, it takes time. But once you get over your own need to complain, you realize how stupid it is and actually begin to despise it when you hear it from other people.

I am now finished complaining about complaining.

Top 5 Things We Will Miss Most About Namibia

1. Adventures 

We have a very adventurous lifestyle at the moment. Living in the village and simply being in the Peace Corps makes everyday an adventure in one way or another. You never really know what might happen. Things sometimes go smoothly but they never happen as planned and stuff goes wrong - a lot. But hey, that is what makes it an adventure in the first place. If you buy me a few beers at home, I might tell you some of the real crazy stuff that happened :)

2. Greetings and a sense of community

Greetings are so important here. Every morning, we greet, shake hands, and exchange in a short dialog with every single person on the staff at our school. The importance of personal relationships and being involved in people’s lives is so deeply ingrained in Namibian culture that people are actually offended if you don’t greet them and speak with them. Overall, it really is a welcoming culture that we will definitely miss being a part of.

3. Being a celebrity

Lindsey and I both have a love/hate relationship with this. Every single person within a 100 mile radius of our village knows exactly who we are. I am, “Timo, the white one that plays soccer in Mayara” and Lindsey is “Mrs. Timo, the fit one that runs far.” Whenever we go to Rundu, people often come up to us and ask us about our lives in Mayara and speak to us as if we are best friends, though we have never seen or met them before. Whenever we walk around the village or go for a run, everyone completely stops what they are doing and stares - like we are going to do a magic trick or something. If I didn’t yell at them to go play somewhere else, little kids would literally stand in the entrance to our homestead and stare at us for hours (which is exactly what they did when we first arrived before I knew how to yell at them in Thimbukushu!). While it makes us feel “cool” to be so well known and liked, it is also rather awkward to be stared at everywhere you go. So as I said, it is a love/hate relationship.

4. The relaxed lifestyle

As I have said before, things here move at a slow, relaxed pace. It has been good to be able to relax along with everyone else for awhile.

5. Friendships

While this kind of goes along with number 2, I thought it deserved its own spot in the top 5. Between other volunteers, teachers, and students, we have made a lot of good friends here. We will definitely miss you guys.

A group of students from Texas A&M visited us a couple of weeks ago on their study abroad trip.

What We Will Take Away

Being in the Peace Corps and serving in Namibia was the best decision that Lindsey and I have ever made. Every aspect of our lives has been enriched and our marriage was certainly made stronger these past two years. We have learned to appreciate the things we never even noticed before, learned to adapt to difficult situations, and have become very comfortable with the little that we have here. We will never forget the friendships that we made, the amazing travels and adventures we went through, and the trials that sometimes seemed to test our sanity.

The Peace Corps is certainly not for everyone. You do have to be a bit crazy and you must be willing to adapt to whatever environment, both social and physical, that you live in. If you have found this blog and are tempted to apply, think really hard about it first. Out of the 36 people that came in our group, only 22 made it through the whole two years. It is not easy. Honestly, it will probably be the most challenging and frustrating two years of your life. But if you want to test yourself and embrace a new way of living and learn to serve, then maybe it will be the most rewarding two years of your life as well. 

With a humble heart, teach me some lessons. Show me to do my part, in the place you have me standing. 

When we first arrived, I used to sing those lines from one of my favorite songs over and over again when the thought of living in a hut in a village for two years seemed frighteningly impossible. Those lyrics helped remind me of why we even came to Africa in the first place. And after being here for two years, I couldn’t think of a more perfect (and possibly more cheesy?) way to summarize what we learned in how the lyrics of that song have now changed for me.

With a humble heart, we learned so many lessons. We found our part, in the place you had us standing.

I Guess This Is.... Goodbye?

Thanks to all of you for your constant prayers and support since we first arrived back in July of 2012. It is almost overwhelming to think about hundreds of people that were praying for us when we were here. Neither of us died, so God certainly heard my mom’s prayers to keep those snakes away! But honestly, to all of you who even said a single prayer for us - thank you.

Lindsey and I when we first stepped off the plane in Namibia after two days of traveling back in 2012.

The two of us and our cat in front of one of our huts.

Lindsey and I leave for Indonesia on September 3rd, where will continue on to Thailand, India, Cambodia, and end at Mount Everest in Nepal. If all goes according as planned, we should be back in the motherland on December 11th. So to those of you that are praying, please continue. We still have a long way to go before we make it back safely and as we tend to do rather crazy things, we will continue that pattern on this trip. 

So, I guess this is goodbye. Weird. I certainly hope that all of you have enjoyed reading the blog, as I know that I certainly enjoyed writing it and keeping all of you up to date with our lives here. It has been an adventure.

For the last time

Peace,

Tim & Lindsey