March 28, 2009
Yesterday I felt tired, lonely, listless, and beaten. It happens sometimes. I didn’t really have a reason. Things were actually going quite well. That morning, we planned the informational meeting for the softball team (finally), everything was coming into place for our big dinner for the Escojo group, and I had made the posters I needed for Friday’s meeting. I was maybe feeling a bit overwhelmed by the work to come, but it had been a productive morning.
Despite a morning of good work, I felt, well, tired lonely, listless, and beaten. Huh.
Bueno. After taking a break and reading, I still wasn’t feeling any better, so I went outside to talk to one of my neighbors. I really like this young woman. She lives in the house behind mine, but doesn’t speak any Spanish. I bring her coffee in the mornings, and recently we’ve started having chats. She puts up with my halting Creole, which I really appreciate. I sat down with her and we talked for over half an hour. Well, I did my best, but my best was further along than I thought it was. Our conversations was really, really basic, but it was a conversation. I said stuff, she said stuff; I listened, understood, and responded. I’ve been feeling really down about my inability to pick up Creole on the job (I know–maybe a little too perfectionist) and it was really affirming to realize that I’m not doing THAT badly. It was also nice to realize that maybe I have another friend. She sells fish and fried plantains, and she gave me a plate of plantains to chomp on, which was an extremely nice gesture. I left the whole encounter feeling really really good.
Then we had a big dinner! I had another meeting to go to, but three middleschool aged girls cooked AND cleaned my house (rearranging everything in a manner that I am not totally crazy about, but at least they mopped) while I ran back and forth from the other meeting. They heaped praise and love on me, which I really needed and which felt GREAT (they like me better than Kaveh, the old volunteer! I actually found myself defending him, which was kind of weird). We had our big dinner with 14 kids in my living room. Lili did great, she didn’t even bark once, despite the masses of screaming kids hauling chairs in and out. I now feel exhausted, but good. Love those adolescents.
