Alright, here's another round of journals (only two this time). Life is crazy, but good, lots of emotions as I try to figure out what I want my job to be--since it's entirely up to me. Every day they (meaning my bosses) ask "What do you want to do, what do you think your job will be?", to which I reply "Uuhh, well...helping kids?" or something along those lines. So send over positive thoughts that will inspire creativity and organization in me! Okay, love you all:)

9/23/06

“In the world, the carrying capacity for humans is limited. History holds all things in the balance, including large hopes and short lives. When Albert Schweitzer walked into the jungle, bless his heart, he carried antibacterials and a potent, altogether new conviction that no one should die young. He meant to save every child, thinking Africa would then learn how to have fewer children. But when families have spent a million years making nine in the hope of saving one, they cannot stop making nine. Culture is a slingshot moved by the force of its past.” –Adah Price, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

Are our hopes blown to the wind, replaced by harsh reality and compromised weakness?

There’s a recurrent internal battle that wages in my mind from time to time, and though I’ve no choice but to bat it away, it persists, tossing me back and forth between guilt and satisfaction. I just finished re-reading the second half of The Poisonwood Bible (for about the 3rd or 4th time) and it always leaves me so impassioned, so full, so questioning. And it incites the battle again. With all of the injustice, all of the hurt and pain and need in the world, where truly is my role best played? I fight with myself, how I shouldn’t be in the “Beach” Corps (as they call Cape Verde), how I shouldn’t have running water and a toilet, how I shouldn’t have a large, sprawling bedroom and a comfortable bed, how I should be surviving off of what little the rest of the suffering impoverished developing world learns to survive with. How I shouldn’t be receiving everything I could ever need or want in nice little packages from the States (not to say I don’t appreciate them). There is a tape in my mind that plays on repeat and tells me I should be living in a mud hut, learning how to live off the land and make due without toilet paper, wondering where you’re going to find your food for next week. And not just for the purpose of suffering or false glory, but to be stretched and molded, to live in solidarity with others, to appreciate things more, to live more in line with how people used to live, before laziness, time efficiency, and technology took over and suddenly became important. And it sounds ridiculous I’m sure, and self-sacrificial, approaching some twisted delusion of grandeur or Mother Teresa complex, but still it hurts my heart sometimes. So sometimes the side battling for guilt wins and reminds me of how much comfort I live in. I have more than I ever needed. And aren’t we all operating out of guilt anyway, reassuring ourselves that the things we throw blindly out there in excess are actually needed or desired, all to make ourselves feel as though we have contributed and to quiet the nagging leech residing in the darkest corners of our minds, telling us we’ve done wrong? We’ve abused every chance we’ve been given, at every turn. Sometimes we have to let guilt win a battle or two.

And I know that maybe the side for satisfaction may ultimately win out, at least for now, reminding myself that I am doing what I can, piece by piece, maybe even eventually making a tiny dent in the abyss of what’s lacking, maybe even remembering that we’ll never get there and it will never be solved. But tonight I cower in my corner of self-loathing, feeling selfish, spoiled, and the privilege to escape from suffering for a day. What is it in me that craves punishment, that longs to get what I must somehow deserve? That part of me that wants to take all the weight off the backs of the oppressed, whom I have oppressed, and to somehow show them that this means time has reversed itself, collapsed within itself. The same time that I want history to dissolve itself, I bring it forth, make it stand out and scream its name through the valleys, or whisper it through the trees. I can’t escape myself, no matter how fast I run, and the weight of it all crushes tiny me beneath an overwhelming unknown. It keeps reminding me I know so little, lack so much, and not the strength to find the answers, if they exist. And someone will tell me, “Seek your happiness, allow yourself to find the joy that exists in possibility, it’s not you, you can’t carry it,” but I’ll still feel I have a debt to pay, penance dispersed to a thousand nameless faces. And part of me sometimes secretly wonders how much possibility there is, if we’re just fabricating a sense of rightness, restoring an order that presumes the existence of disorder that was perhaps never there. I introduced the disorder, or it was my fathers, but it was I just the same. And my being here won’t undo it, running throughout Africa pretending I know what to do or how to do it certainly won’t. I want to see their triumph, to take part in it, ultimately knowing that any true triumph can’t involve me, and may necessarily require my downfall. Unite, conquer, regain yourselves, stand proud. Wait for the next group to come in and say it’s not allowed, no pride that doesn’t wear our symbol, that isn’t blanketed by our best attempt at truth. Unfounded truth. And that group will bear my name, wear my skin, rip from me my identity and charge forth with it, their banner.

Maybe it’s always a battle, maybe I belong on the front lines, pretending I deserve to be there, pretending I won’t always be seen as different. And I settle on that, because the alternative is too scary, the tiny steps backward we take into comfort and safe dominion, glorious ignorance. Temporarily, at least. What happens when we no longer have dominion, no longer comfort? It is then that we step forward into the light, as best we can, not allowing our lives to be driven by guilt or a false sense of humility. We’re all just doing the best we can, until that excuse runs out.

9/25/06

Today was a slightly crazy day for me at the ICM Center (I’ll just refer to it as the Center from now on), a lot to think about. Andreia and I sat down after the girls headed off to their first day of school, and talked about what we want me to do, where I can jump in. She’s leaving it open and telling me to do whatever I want, no real direction except to say that she thinks I could start leading groups of girls when they’re not in school, doing various workshops or activities, basically whatever I feel like. That’s great of her to give me the freedom, but I still feel like I know so little about the Center and what kinds of activities they’ve done in the past, what routine they’re used to, all the girls’ names and backgrounds, not to mention fluent Criolu. So I told her maybe next week or later. Even then, what do I start with? Here’s a session on AIDs awareness, girls, be careful out there! I know it will get to those things eventually, but I really would rather gain the girls’ trust first, get to know them, establish why I’m here, etc. So I asked her if before we do any of this, I could finally see the files she was promising me about every girl—including where they were born, why they came, family situation, etc. So I spent my four hours in the morning and three in the afternoon reading in Portuguese about abusive and alcoholic mothers, abandoned children, sexually abused girls, girls who kill animals and act out aggressively, children born in prison, and children unwanted by their families—all children who have beautiful little faces and names that I’ve come to know over the last two weeks. I suppose it becomes easy to let your optimistic first impression cloud your knowledge of their sad histories, and you can find yourself pretending it’s just extensive daycare or an orphanage. And maybe some of the more troubled girls hide from the new strange white lady what they really want to express (though most of them truly are sweet wonderful girls, I’m convinced). Case in point: one of the older girls that was dancing for me last week, and whom I took pictures of, badly beat another girl this weekend, leaving large welts and bruises, and for reasons I still haven’t been able to determine (damn language barrier). So they brought the two girls in and I sat while the aggressive girl was yelled at for her behavior and sent to her room for two days straight. Afterwards, the social worker, obviously frazzled and unsure what to do or say, sat down with me and asked with pleading eyes what my opinion was, what I would do, what my “expert advice as a psychologist” was, what I could do to help the girl. Speechless, I wondered how I hadn’t been clear in the beginning that a degree in psychology in the States doesn’t make you a qualified psychologist. I asked a few questions about the situation, then offered my opinion of the girl’s situation (probable antisocial tendencies, need for regulative therapy for aggression, whatever I could meagerly explain in Criolu), indicating that the girl should have regular consultations of some kind, with someone other than the grade-school educated monitoras who clean the bathrooms. She then followed by asking me if I could help the girl, if I could meet with her, do some of my psychology magic on her—practically act as her licensed psychiatrist. I was pretty overwhelmed at the prospect, with some serious concerns about my qualifications (or lack thereof), and I stumbled through some sort of answer about my language difficulties and how it would be irresponsible of me to take that type of duty on so soon, as I might misunderstand what the girl tells me or say something inappropriate from lack of Criolu. I also told her that my job wasn’t as ICM psychologist, that I was more concerned with gaining the girls’ trust first. She agreed, and I could see her remember for a moment that I had just arrived in Assomada two weeks ago, completely new to social services in this country. But I definitely got a glimpse of the role she envisions me taking at some point in my two years. And it worries me, because I don’t know how things work here in Cape Verde: can someone with an undergraduate-level psychology degree work as a counseling psychologist with high-risk youth? I don’t feel comfortable with it, no matter what or how strong my interest is. I’m simply not qualified or experienced in dealing with aggressive or antisocial youth, or severely traumatized youth—you only go so far reading textbooks. Perhaps with some guidance I would be comfortable providing assistance (once I figure out what is appropriate within Cape Verdean regulation and practice), but not acting as full-fledged psychologist. I really want to help in whatever way I can, but I don’t want to proclaim abilities I don’t necessarily have. So what do I do? I suppose I’ll just have to talk with her, explain to her how things work with psychology in the States, and tell her I’d be willing to work alongside the ICM psychologist. It’s so hard, because I look in her eyes and see desperation, like she never knew what she was getting herself into, didn’t know how much responsibility she’d be taking on, and has no clue what the right response is for some of these girls. She’s so young and new to Cape Verde, I wonder how she’s gotten by this past year. Sink or swim, I suppose, but sometimes I wonder if she’s about to do the former. I think she’ll be alright. Hopefully I will be.