Between the Folds

Another couple of weeks down. I used to cross off every day on my calendar as I completed it.  I guess it was a way to remind myself that time was still moving, that I was moving forward. I stopped doing that a long time ago, though.  It started with me forgetting a day, then a few, then a whole week.  A week ago, I realized I had forgotten to mark off my calendar for several weeks and decided to just stop the process.  The page for the month of September sits empty just as it did on the first of the month.  When the time comes for the calendar to turn to October, I won't cross anything off or have any sort of ceremony.  I'll simply turn the page.

If you haven't seen the documentary that shares a name with the title of this post, I highly suggest it.  It's free in its entirety on Youtube.  It's a documentary primarily about origami and some real world applications of the science and theory that defines origami.  To me, though, it's about more than that.  It's about finding meaning in life and how people can find meaning in amazing or sometimes strange places.  I recall this film because I often think about why I'm here.  What am I looking for in Peace Corps?  What meaning is there for me to find here?  When I was in America, I felt a need to be more connected to the world.  I had been out of the country a few times, but, when I did, it was only for a short time and I was very sheltered, ushered from one event to the next where we talked about culture, but never really took the time to observe it.  I also felt like I was more useful doing work like this rather than taking a job in America selling advertisement space.  Now, while my traveling and learning about the world certainly isn't close to over, I've temporarily satisfied that craving.  I'm experiencing new things every day, which I suppose is one of the core desires that pushed me towards Peace Corps; the desire for variety.  With that craving satisfied, I'm able to focus on other things like what I'm actually trying to do in the short and long term.  I think in the short term, Peace Corps is good for me.  I need to finish out my commitment here.  Failure to do so would be nothing sort of devastating unless it was completely out of my hands (i.e. Ebola spreads further north).  In the long term, I still haven't really figured it out.  I have these ideas of getting an MBA and a Public Policy degree and going into International Development in some capacity, but I don't know what I actually want to do with that.  It just sounds like a logical progression, something a normal person interested in Peace Corps work would do after their service. Is that really what I want to do though?  Riding on the bus in Dakar gives you a lot of time to think and I was trying to pick out what I consider to be the highlights of the past few weeks, months, years.  Times where I felt the happiest.  I noted that while I was satisfied with the work I'm doing in Peace Corps, it hardly helped me sleep at night.  The work to be done is so massive and I'm not one to celebrate small successes.  When I'm working on a project and a small step is made, I turn my focus to the next one and only at the end can I relax.  The problem with this work is that there is no end.  I'm not saying that I won't continue to participate in the development community after Peace Corps.  I just don't know if it's what will give me the peace of mind I need in the long term.  I went back to the drawing board and thought about times when I was at peace.  Happy and zen, if you will.  When I looked at it that way, I realized that I really was the most at peace when I was playing ultimate.  Now, I've always loved sports, so this wasn't a huge surprise to me.  I've always assumed that I was too unathletic to play them at a high level, though.  I thought about working in and took an internship in the business side of sports for a while, but it just didn't feel the same and I ended up dropping that idea for Peace Corps.  I'm beginning to challenge the notion of what my body can and can't do, though.  I believe that you can't get out of your body what you don't first put into it and I haven't ever put a lot of work into my body.  I've stayed active and ate well, you know, enough to stay reasonably healthy, but I've never really pushed myself and my athletic ability.  I had this thought a few days ago, but gave it a little bit of time before I wrote about it just in case it was an adrenaline rush talking or something else like that.  It seems to me that I'm for real this time because for the last few days, I've woken up at 7am and gotten a workout in, something that I've never done consistently before in my life.  I also feel motivation that I haven't felt in a long time.  I hate running.  I absolutely just hate running with no purpose, but now, I want to do it.  I feel like I have to.  This is a change that happened almost overnight.  I'm now extremely motivated to push my body to its limits and play ultimate at the highest level I possibly can because I've realized that ultimate is my origami.  It may not have the same noble ring to it as International Development, but it makes sense to me, leaves me at peace, so that's what I'm going to do until it no longer makes me feel that way.  I'm not sure what that means for my professional prospects after Peace Corps, but I know that for the remainder of my service, I'm going to focus on getting in the best shape I can and become the best ultimate player that I can while still fulfilling my responsibilities.

So, that was the major personal development of the past few weeks.  If it sticks, it is certainly a very major development.  Anyway, on the work side of things, this upcoming week figures to be pretty slow as the major holiday of Tabaski will take place on October 5th.  Tabaski, or Eid al-Adha, celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his first-born son for God.  As Abraham was about to strike, God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead.  Therefore, on this day, Muslims pay homage to this sacrifice by slaughtering a lamb, goat, or ram and giving a sizable portion of the meat to charity.  Here in Senegal, it's the biggest holiday of the year, so not a lot of work will get done for about a week before or a few days after.  There are a few things I can get done in the mean time and a few things I've tabled until I had more free time that I can get started on, but I'll use a decent chunk of this time exercising and recovering.