Perseverance

Two weeks ago we had our reconnect conference. The goal of the conference was for every volunteer in our omnibus to bring along their community counterpart and present a report on their community’s needs, current projects, and future projects that they are thinking of starting based on the data they gathered in the first 5 months.

My counterpart didn’t come.

It was disappointing but in reality this was only a symptom of a larger problem: lack of community support. I essentially work alone, without any support or guidance from anyone in the community. It’s been really hard to crack the shell and feel like part of the community, but so far I’ve only really made inroads at the school. And I’m not there just to work at a school, teaching English and working on a garden.

This is very frustrating, because as part of this conference we were given information on funding opportunities that are available to us. If I had an association of people that wanted to make, for instance, crafts to sell in Quito, I could almost certainly acquire some funding to help them out. But people in my community don’t work together as a result of squabbles and jealousies that trace back generations.

I guess I shouldn’t take it personally, and keep doing everything I can at the school. Do what you can with what you’re given, and all that. But the worst feeling in the world is the feeling of uselessness or of being underutilized.

So, I’m stepping back a bit and trying to appreciate the good things, look back on some good memories. For one, I got to see my friends from training, whom I hadn’t seen since swear-in, 5 months before:

It’s been great to commiserate with them. Turns out that most of us have similar worries. From talking to them I realized that they all meet up regularly with the other volunteers in their clusters, whereas I very seldom do. My cluster never gets together, so I’ve decided I’m going to start joining up with nearby clusters when they get together.

Here’s a nice picture of Adina in traditional Kitchwa attire, taken when we visited PCV Lindsay near Riobamba:

PCV Cara hooked us up with some sweet Omnibus 103 vests. I will probably never use it at my site since it’s never cold, but I look forward to wearing it on trips or when I go back home.