To my fellow Peace Corp Volunteers:

Somewhere, in the midst of everything, we have seemingly lost our intent, our focus. We all were alone, coming here for our various goals, reasonings, and that created a bond amongst us: seemingly unbreakable, creating a system of checks and balances we could all rely on.

I used that system, depended on it, we all did. At the end of the day, when I was frustrated or pulling out my hair- a result of impermeable boredom, or was reduced to tears from utter pangs of homesickness- I knew I could send a message to one of my counterparts and knew they would send an encouraging word or make me laugh because they too were enduring the same trials.

Now, after being in this country for nearly 9 months, I’m seeing the gradual erosion of that system. As many of our smaller frustrations are compounding and morphing into full grown problems I see we are also more and more expelled on our own to deal with these issues, forcing us to lock them away, building a mass of perpetual hostility, and chipping away at our efficiency and capability for completing the jobs for which we were assigned.

Inevitably, as a group of people spends increasing amounts of time together, temperaments will collide and clashes will arise, but we need not to focus on these instances because as we do we are also corroding our ability to be successful in our villages as part of our attention shifts to these outside events and feelings.

I discussed all this with Seth and Ivy, and realized that in myself my behavior has been changing. I now avoid large group gatherings of Peace Corp Volunteers for the utter sake of wishing to avoid the attached drama. I have witnessed entirely too many volunteers become upset, even be reduced to tears by other volunteers and see this as a hug failure on our parts. What happened to the days where debriefing our experiences with other volunteers acted to help us in keeping strong and focused? Why has our group laughter turned into animosity with certain people avoiding others for various prescribed reasons? We see so much emotional instability in the village: so much avoiding of the truth, lethargic values, taking the easy road out. Now these characteristics are reflecting in how we act towards each other. Often we think of ourselves first, not actualizing the fact of the strenuous places we place others, many of whom are already struggling to retain their much tested sanity.

Seth and Ivy asked me if I thought the drama would eventually ebb, reach a high point, and gradually descend, bringing us back to our former days where we were there for each other, when we realized we could do our jobs most efficiently when we were tranquil and happy, and we reached this step when we supported and respected on another.

I don’t know if we can return to that point. How many bridges, once burned, can honestly be resurrected? I look longingly back to the days when we joyfully celebrated Thanksgiving and New Year’s together and enjoyed ourselves, came together as a family, and left feeling stronger, returning to our villages renewed and inspired.

Our transcendence is frankly depressing. As adults we should be able to weigh our actions and work together. I came to South Africa to discover people who were leading happy lives despite dire predicaments. I’m beginning to think that people in my village are better at focusing on what is really important in life, maybe the problem lies in the way we were raised, the materialism we constantly witnessed.

I hope, in the end, that I discover the true value of people and can demonstrate my respect of these values. I hope that we all regain the focus that propelled us towards this experience in the first place. For now I hope we find a balance of equilibrium between our feelings and actions. Currently, I feel very alone, I think many of us do, and hope we can all reach a place that allows us to be a support system once again.