As a kid, rule #1 was to never say ‘I’m bored” around adults. Inevitably, that would lead to the assigning of some chore that I REALLY did not want to do. As a fairly inventive kid, I was rarely bored. I read., built things and explored. I wrote stories and drew pictures. Sometimes, I talked to my friends on an actual telephone. In the house.. Anything to not tell the adults “I’m bored'”
In that regards, Peace Corps Volunteers are like kids and Peace Corps Staff are like adults. Boredom lives in the Peace Corps and everyone knows it, but no one says it. Peace Corps Volunteers around the world are in charge of their own schedule. For Peace Corps Rwanda Health, our schedule should mirror our counterpart, but at minimum, we should ‘work’ 20 hours/week. But what if your assigned counterpart has fled the country and works zero hours? Or the other one shows up 5 hours late because of ummm ‘excessive alcohol consumption’? Or you show up to the health center at 7a as you are told to do for a meeting, and sit on a hard wooden bench for an hour and no one shows up to said meeting.. What happens then?
There’s no time clock to clock in and out and in theory, PCVs should create schedules with their counterparts. But in my case, with no actual counterpart, what’s a PCV to do? 20 hours a week is approximately 11.9% of a week. How do I fill the other 88%.? I wonder around the ikigonderabuzima and look for friendly faces. Sometimes I end up in pharmacy and count pills and fill prescriptions [oooh pharmacy tech, I know how to do this job]. Other times I end up in maternity and see babies [oooh NICU nurse, I know how to do this job]. Sometimes I end up in an educational lecture [oooh, topic educator, I can do this too–just not in kinya]. Yet, other times I help unload deliveries [ooooh, inventory specialist, I can do that too]. Sometimes, and lately this has been my favorite thing to do, I peruse daily ledgers to see why people are coming to the health center [actual community health] and tally the number of cases of each admission. Then I sort by gender and age range. [oooh. beginning epidemiology]. I love doing this task mostly because it doesn’t require me speaking to people and I since government documents are in Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili, French, and English, I get exposure to all 4 languages. Sometimes I bring my radio and listen to Rwanda radio and spend literally 8 hours in my office without seeing another soul. [I know, bad volunteer. We are supposed to be out meeting and greeting and gaining fluency in our language[s],] I’m very productive with the ledgers and can categorize large volumes of info into readable reports. Sometimes I weigh babies. [I can practice numbers in French and Kenya! and get tongue-tied over Rwandan names]. There is freedom to do literally anything.
Some PCVs bury themselves in their projects; some spend two years doing nothing. Some use weekends to travel around the country they are in; while others are “site rats” and barely leave their site. [This is 100% not me It’s my goal to visit everyone in my cohort’s site at least once. I don’t think the PC director would approve of that goal, but I’m going for more Rwanda integration than ‘site integration’]
Be Present. Just Be Present. That’s a feat that most Westerners cannot accomplish.–especially Americans. Peace Corps is the perfect opportunity for volunteers to release themselves from the American mindset of always being occupied or productive in a fast-paced society. I’ve gained an appreciation for unstructured time with family, friends and neighbors, hours of uninterrupted reading time (34 books and counting in 6 months) But here I am finding ways to keep myself entertained [yay for only child experience] , and these past 6 months are changing me and clarifying the future version of myself. Whether I like it or not, it’s changing me, and that is something powerful. I’m growing so much more aware of who I am, where I am, what I can give, and where I’m going.
When people show up late for meeting, I learn how to measure height in centimeters.
And sometimes people show up SEVERAL hours after the scheduled meeting time. I now know that I am 175cm tall.
Here’s some things I do when I’m bored (I mean really bored) at site.
- Go on a walk
- Listen to music and stare at the wall
- Play with #notmycat and her babies
- Play solitaire
- Play banana grams by myself
- Look up words in my Kinyarwanda/French/English dictionary and try to learn 2 languages at the same time
- Look up “cost of living in Washington, DC” Or Washington state. Or London. Or Canada. Fall down the rabbit hole of ‘where can RNs work internationally’
- Look up qualifications to work for MSF
- Begin to lear Arabic despite not knowing anything about Arabic nor having anyone to speak Arabic with.
- Speak with my neighbor in German because my German is much better than my Kinyarwanda or French
- Make up entirely non-plausible stories in my head about living in Rwanda and speaking more German than any of the 4 official languages of the country.
- Daydream about going on safari.
- Read, read, read, and read some more
- Study for the GRE
- Make some tea
- Do some yoga
- Write a blog post
- Plot revenge
- Take a bucket bath inside my house and use the excess water to ‘mop’ the floor
- Watch pirated movies
- Take a three hour nap
- Stay up until 3 am because that’s the only time I can hear myself think
- Sort out my photos
- Write letters to friends
- Teach myself how to photoshop on pirated software
- Journal, journal, journal
- Put on a face mask
- Plan a trip to Uganda, Kenya, and/or Tanzania
- Plan a trip to Zimbabwe/Zambia
- Make plans to live abroad permanently including how and where
- Check on my bucket garden
- Chop vegetables
- Make grocery aka market lists
- look up new recipes that can be made with village supplies
- practice suturing my fake arm
- read more books
- listen to music
- try to remember how to solve math problems
- investigate taking the foreign service exam
- WhatsAPP other PCVs
Remember why I’m here and how joyful this whole experience is despite the ample free time!