Traveling, Pt. 3

Er Rachdidia 3

We played a game after dinner that night. We placed love themed adjectives in a hat and had to write nouns that best described that adjective. Some of the words included “lust”, “throbbing”, “passionate”, and “fleeting”. The nouns written made it clear that many volunteers had so far been celibate. For the most part, the game was humorous. Then the word “unconditional” came up. I tried to be clever and state that a volunteer’s hair after two years of not bathing was “unconditional”. The note cards were opened, and the room became silent as a card was read.

“Marcus’ love is unconditional,” the reader said.

Tinghir

“The purpose of VSN training,” the trainer said, “Is to use active listening skills to allow the volunteer to come up with a solution to their own problem. Break up into pairs and try to use what we learned. You can use your own problem.”

I walked up to the roof with my partner, and we discussed my problem. I didn’t know what to do in my village. My village is decent, the people are nice, but I haven’t had any major work. After a year of drinking tea, traveling, and socializing, I began to feel like I was useless. For this session, we were to use the three steps to come up with a solution: fantasize any solution, find out which of those solutions is realistic, and then create a plan.

“Well,” the volunteer asked, “What is your ideal situation?”
“I want to move to Er Rachidia. In Er Rachidia, I teach kids. They are different than adults. I can be myself and they don’t judge me. They don’t call me weak or useless. The adults do.”
“Okay, keep going.”
“I want the men to understand me. I don’t hate them, I just can’t stand how they talk about women and prostitutes. I don’t fit in with men.”
“Go on.”
“I want the women to stop feeling threatened by me. I want them to know that I like cleaning and laundry and doing dishes. I want them to know that I feel more kinship with them than the men.”
“Okay.”
“I want to do something with my service. I don’t want to just be a social misfit who drinks tea the entire two years. I don’t want to be useless.”
“Okay.”

I looked out over the roof of the house. Women wandered through the fields, carrying baskets of food. I never fit in with men. It’s a strange feeling to be told that you should identify with certain people, only to find that they aren’t like you at all. It’s a strange feeling, to notice the mannerisms and behaviors, even to the point of voice inflection, and realize that you are not one of them. It is as though there is a glass wall between you and everyone else.

As I thought of it, I became angry. I have sacrificed myself all my life. I sacrificed who I am, how I identify, and every other aspects of my life just so that I could make others comfortable around me, both here and in America. I can’t keep doing that, and if people don’t accept that, then they won’t be in my life.