A new awakening

I took a trip to the post office today during a break between classes. On my walk back I realized that I was, for the first time since arriving, finally seeing my town. At this point I feel like I know the main features of the place fairly well, but there were so many details I had been missing.

Whether this was caused by physically or metaphorically having my head down for the past several months, I don’t know. It’s safe to wager that I may have missed a few details with my head down, body leaning into the often fierce, frigid winds that punctuated winter. It could also be that the overwhelming shock of all the rapid, continual changes of my life here blocked out all but the most critical features of the world here.

But today things were clearer. The weather may have played a part as well. It was a bright, sunny day with a beautiful pale blue sky mottled by cottony white clouds. The trees aren’t in bloom or even bud, but the first green shoots of grass are making their way skyward.

Today I finally noticed details of buildings that I’ve walked past for months and not realized. Several of the apartment buildings and schools are quite beautiful in their own plain, utilitarian way. Another building that I always saw as being a solid, bulky structure is in fact nothing more than a shell. There are no windows in the frames, frames which have a substantial patina of rust, and the whole thing is open and empty.

I still struggle daily with the challenges of living in this place, but I feel like the general trend of life is an upward one. After the lows of the last few months it’s certainly nice to be heading back up.

There’s still much work to do. And though the Peace Corps stresses flexibility, I think I’ve been confusing flexibility with malaise for some time. To accomplish anything here I’ll need to be persistent and dedicated. It’s still possible to be flexible while doing that. What flexibility isn’t is sitting back and waiting for a better time or opportunity to start something. Flexibility is working voraciously towards a goal from as many different angles as possible. It’s also knowing when it’s time to adjust the goal.

During our training in Almaty we did an exercise about what “hat” we wear in the teamwork process. My primary hat seemed to be the control one. With this knowledge firmly in mind, the previous paragraph is mildly amusing and hardly surprising.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for hanging in there. I’ll catch you next time around!