Positive Hijacking: My new approach to life.

I exited March much like a zombie might have with staggering strides haphazardly tramping forwards. Say that five times fast.

So, I understand why you might have a brainfreeze. I sure do. On a sidenote, I could not be happier that these last few days have invited me to cozy up in my favourite flannels.

I digress. Amidst the swirl of languages whirling inside my brain and chaotic thoughts of the ever-growing complexities surrounding my work here, it’s quite remarkable that this month reached a relatively tranquil denouemont.  Clinging to the last glimmers of wisdom I’d carried throughout training, I decided it was high time I re-check my attitude at the door. Sometimes there’s no better cure than a positive change in attitude. Like I sort of alluded to in my last post, I think it’s easy to forget the things that matter most, when the big picture is being overshadowed by the demons of yore.

Having a friend outside of Peace Corps stay with me for a couple weeks provided fantastic perspective, and although I was not quite ready for it, invited a revitalization and addition of a word that I’d like to henceforth reclaim. Hijacking. And let me just start by saying, it always comes down to intention. The verb connotes the illegal seizing (of [countless means of transport]) in transit and force it to go to a different destination or use it for one’s own purposes. Thus, I think there’s plenty of room to rewrite it’s meaning to match my intentions. 

Positive Hijacking: |paw-sa-tiv ­ hai-g-ak-ng| verb: to create or cause a change of course with jedi-like ease resulting in a more favorable outcome. To, on one’s own accord, reframe or reappropriate the relative instructions given to ensure a better outcome with the least amount of negative consequences.

 
I know what you’re thinking… Great scots! Pam could be the next Webster… her definitions are boss. Hahaha… Just kidding.

I think one of the hardest things to do in another culture is to strike the perfect balance of assimilation and acceptance while also feeling satisfied with your social identity.  If you’re not careful, nuances can dig their way to the forefront of your mind, and make it practically impossible to focus on anything other than what makes something different. If I were to focus on all of the little things that would be handled differently in the U.S. I would actually go crazy, feel completely out of control, and my bloodpressure would constantly be through the roof. There’s a doily on my wall that sums it up nicely, “you can do anything, just not everything”.  This is crucial. To live successfully somewhere other than the environment you grew up in, you have to be able to look at the differences not in fear or repulsion but with modest amusement and a casual “hmmm”.  There is no other way. However, there are times when bringing aspects of your culture into the discussion can be extremely valuable, and not intrusive or patronizing.

Cue positive hijacking.

The thing is, while I do a pretty admirable job of absorbing cultures and languages like a sponge, I am who I am.  And sometimes it is perfectly okay to share my me-ness unapologetically. End of story. Thus, I’m shedding some of the anxiety I’ve been carrying around, constantly feeling like I’m walking on eggshells. I am not saying to completely disregard the world around you, by all means, flexibility is probably one of the most valuable traits a person can have in this particular context. However, I am telling you that it is also perfectly acceptable to be you in all of your wonderful you-ness. I’ve been struggling with this for a while because the gray line can often be misinterpreted as a complete disreard for someone else’s feelings. This is not necessarily true. And once you start peeling back the layers, you start seeing things for what they really are (at least in that moment).  Man, this is the most roundabout way I could have gone to address this new beloved definition.

Utsini? Basically… I decided that so much of my time gets hijacked (most often positively) that it was acceptable for me to take equal part in hijacking things as well.  This isn’t a perfect system… and the resulting consequences cannot always be known at the commencement of said hijacking. But, generally, things tend to work out in the longrun.

A perfect example of this was back when Lindiwe was visiting. (In fact, the birth of this fine terminology was this very event).  The sports teacher had been planning an inter-houses competition… for a while, and because of the amount of rain that poured down in March, it kept being pushed back. Finally, the eve of this competition, and we’re having a staff meeting to prepare for the following day.  This is when Lindiwe and I learn that we have been deemed the “Information Centre” and in charge of the “Records Committee”.  News to us. That’s fine. See, hijacked. The ironic thing was, besides that, the so-called Information Centre had no information about what was going to happen… aside from knowning that there were Xnumber of events, and 8 runners per event.  So we made up our own system. Positive hijacking.  And I’d say we rocked at being the Information Centre.

I think what made this feel so empowering… per say… stems back to my earlier ramblings, about that fine gray line that we’re constantly teetering on.  And I wonder if that line really needs to be there. When I first arrived at my site my outsider-ness was very evident.  But now, I feel as much a part of this community as anyone else. I am a part of this fabulous team. It’s just a very comforting feeling because if you focus too much on the non-permance of your work/presence as a volunteer, then I think that gives way to over-thinking too much. I’m not saying to ignore making conscious and thoughtful decisions based on what things you introduce and work towards, but at the end of the day, life is uncertain whether you intend to stay somewhere one year or ten.  I think I found myself stressing so much on the impact I might be having on the community, which created a lot of unnecessary stress, and made things much less enjoyable, and that’s what led me spiraling into a disgruntled existence.

This goes back to rule number four on the flipchart paper on my wall. “Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome”.  Which might be one of the most crucial mentalities to have here. One of the biggest changes in myself (and perhaps evidence that I’ve adjusted to the Swazi culture even a little bit) is the fact that I do not need all of the ity-bity details to feel like things will work out just fine.

I organized a “basic therapy/counseling” training for my teachers, and the teachers at the high school this past week.  I had to prepare food, organize the hall, and send out an invitation, as well as establish a date for the person running the workshop.  But when it came down to actually “preparing” for it, I found myself thinking “well, it’s either going to work, or it isn’t”. Which, I think could be misconstrued as apathy. On the other hand, I feel like it’s just a more realistic acknowledgment of how much any one person can really control. I did all of the things I could do to ensure things would go off without a hitch, the rest wasn’t on me, and that’s fine.

In other news, the term is officially over, and I have a month before the students return. It felt a little bit like the last day of camp, waiting for the parents to arrive and take their children home. We decided to have one final movie night in the hall on Thursday, I showed “The Goonies”.  I tend to dwell a lot on contemplating “who am I to these people?” and I think sometimes it’s easy to let doubt and uncertainty cloud the fact that you actually do belong. Both boys and girls rushed into the hall, pushing each other, and fighting over where they were going to sit. Once they were relatively settled, I put an annoyed look on my face. You know you have respect when you can get every student to stand up, file out of the hall, line up again and nicely re-enter the room.  I’ve come a long way since those confusing days in the library. 

Sign language may actually be my new favorite language (which is saying a lot… I see that look of shock on your face, Jack Angriff).  To capture perfectly the powers of sign language, I present a meme:

How I feel while using Swazi Sign Language…

Because I can successfully convey a message to anyone, anywhere, like a walk-talkie version of “telephone”, without even leaving the comfort of my doorstep.

   
And on that note, I think you’ve suffered through enough jibberjabber for one day.

So... This is happening

I’d first like to begin with a meme that pretty much encapsulates my work as a PCV.

It dawned on me that meetings (and sometimes decision-making in general) here are sort of like Ent Moots.  It took a long time for me to orientate myself this way, and while Lindiwe was visiting (person to be identified in following paragraphs) it became apparent that I’ve adapted to this meeting style… after her conclusion “that was the worst meeting EVER” led to a relatively bemused response from me… “and I was just thinking…  that meeting went pretty well”…

Moving on…

I’ve been spending a lot of time with the older girls, and thought It’d be good to give some attention to the boys and avoid accusations of favouritism.  To reconcile this, (and with on-point suggestions from the lovely Lindiwe) I thought it’d be fun to make some more boardgames out of cardboard and flipchart paper. And why not do it on a Thursday night (especially given that the new trend is to watch movies on Friday nights). So I approached two of the boys (here-to-fore known as Evan and Charlie—since I’ve given all PCVs their Swazi alias, why not change it up and give “American” names to my Swazi friends) that I know best and mentioned that I thought it would be fun to make boardgames tonight so more people could play, etc. (or so I thought…).  I didn’t really think anything of it as the day continued, as I was busy organizing things, while simultaneously trying to tone down the new level of disgruntledness I strolled into and have been wading through on and off over the past few weeks (my life has been a walking “trigger warning” of late… nine months in, I’m surprised it took this long for things to seem less rosey).

Fast forward a few hours.  Charlie presents me with a sheet of paper, glowing with evident enthusiasm.  It turns out, that I had actually communicated that we should have a checkers tournament that night. And Charlie had taken it upon himself to organize EVERYTHING. *Insert moment of beaming pride here* I recollect asking him to gather names/gauge interest of those who’d enjoy [a checkers tournament] making boardgames. He had gone above and beyond that. Neatly printed on a sleeve of loose-leaf paper was a list of boys and girls’ names, the age group, the time, and location of the event, and he had even gone so far as to find and write the name of an adult who would be responsible… which was NOT me. The amount of initiative he took in planning and organizing (in a matter of hours) was really cool to watch, and see how the event unfolded. Save for the creation of another checkerboard (Shoutout to the incredible colouring skills of Lindiwe), and a bracket (created from the gifted mind of Lindiwe), he pretty much singlehandedly ran a tournament of twenty people. 

(I bet you’re now thinking I made Lindiwe my slave for two weeks… That is probably an accurate summation. Apologies in retrospect Ms. Dlamini!).

It’s hard to explain why this seems so remarkable or noteworthy, but the fact is, one of my biggest goals/ideas for the school is to provide more opportunities for students to feel like they have room to organize and implement things that they find interest in (the word I'm looking for here is empowered). To encourage them to follow through and feel supported in the activities and events they want to see happening on a regular basis, and then go through the steps for planning and seeing those plans through. I can’t really take credit for anything that happened that day, other than accidentally giving the greenlight to what turned out to be a really fun evening.

It was also just comforting to see something like this come together. It gets tedious to feel like the only person who is interested in seeing things through, and being expected to do the legwork. I have also had a pretty rocky first term, largely due to having perhaps too high of expectations on how things would transpire. C’est la vie.

Also, I have yet to directly mention that I had a terrifically awesome (superbly wonderous) friend from home visit over the past three-ish weeks. She was swiftly given the name “Lindiwe Dlamini” which was pretty fitting. “Lindiwe” means something along the lines of “we’ve been waiting for you”. Because I’m actually insane, I put her to work for most of the time she was here… (still 1 million times grateful), and despite the fact that I left no time for fun (mostly true), it was actually the best visit I could hope for (you’ve got some big shoes to fill, mom). 

I had a lot of anxiety around her visiting, especially because it felt like literally everything was crumbling right before she landed in the Kingdom. I had reached a new level of disgruntledness that I didn’t know could be achieved, the weather had been pretty icky… essentially I had my own version of “March Madness”.  However, her visit ignitied an urgency to accomplish things that I honestly wasn’t sure existed here. All of a sudden, we had to do this and that “before Lindiwe leaves us.” Thus, sparked the consistent use of the phrase “so… this is happening” because that was the best way that I (perhaps we) could describe the events that unfolded. One minute I’d go from saying “I’m really sorry… I don’t think xyz will be possible.” To being instantly contradicted. You can ask her sometime… After a while I stopped pretending like I knew the answer.

It was also just really validating to have someone from home see my life practically through my eyes. The frustrations and confusion were also shared, and made me feel less like I was struggling more than necessary.  

Because despite my relatively hectic schedule, I still find solace in quiet reflection...

I can’t deny the fact that I experienced a significant amount of growth my first 6 or so months here. However, I think this term provided me several learning opportunities, and unanticipated challenges.

For one, it was amazing to have a friend from home visit. It provided comfort, reassurance and plenty of moments I’ve been missing over the past several months, like pop culture references that provided familiarity, chocolate kakhulu and the familiarity of home. At the same time, it highlighted, then somehow magnified who Bongiwe is. And would the real Bongiwe please stand up? Because I think, while she’s not really an alter ego, she’s definitely a more tenacious and intrepid Pam that boarded a plane all those months ago.

You’d think it’d be hard to misplace yourself when there’s two of you floating around, but February into March was rough. I got ugly.  Disgruntled, cantankerous, bitter, and perhaps even a tad jaded. Woof. With help from Lindiwe, I added a new rule to my list. “It is NOT my responsibility.” Which is a simplified explanation for why things went so sour. The little things that I had not adjusted to so well (forms of communication, overzealous gregariousity in shared living and working space, etc.) tipped me over the edge, and I felt increasing anxiety that things were spiraling out of control, and that everything I’d put my energy towards was no longer valued or relevant. It was a gargantuan bucket of suckiness. In retrospect, the contributing factors to this overflowing bucket, were temporarily forgeting my role, and job description, AND that one of the biggest aspects of being a volunteer is centering your experience on relationship building. Which, honestly, should just be the centripetal force of life. (Fun fact, “petere” is Latin for “seek”). So here I am rambling on as I seek my center. 

How's that for a zen-like conclusion?

And on that note... Here's a flowchart I've been crafting...