The plans for the next couple weeks and the upcoming summer are already being made and it’s soon going to be time for me to start saying “no” to people. This whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been a “yes” person. Yes, I’ll give a training session. Yes, I’ll organize a talent show. Yes, I’d love to start the newsletter up again. I say yes for a couple reasons. Mostly, because I haven’t had anything better to do or haven’t had the busiest schedule. I say it because I respect and appreciate the staff and feel like I owe them one. I say yes because I want to. I say yes because doing different tasks exposes you to different experiences and different people, both of which could be valuable later on.
Currently, I’m serving on VAC (Volunteer Advisory Panel). We are a small committee that acts as an intermediary between staff and volunteers in the field, but we do other things as well. Two weeks ago we had a meeting in which I was “elected” president, which really means that the other two people who could have done it didn’t want to. So I’ve also gotten saddled with that. It means I’ll be interacting with staff a lot more, coordinating meetings, organizing the committee in general, and helping to plan my group’s mid-service conference in August. Anyhow, I said “yes” to the chair position that I got by default and in the process, said “yes” to a mountain of additional work. What makes it more complicated is the poor internet connection in my house that prevents me from sending and receiving email on a regular basis. This is a problem because communication and coordination is a large part of the piece. Despite those problems, I look forward to the experience and being able to work on my group work skills. I don’t pretend that what we do is crucial to volunteer life, but it is important. I don’t pretend that being chair means anything at all, especially when two people wanted nothing to do with it. It basically means as much as a service medal in the USSR, but I know that I’ll learn a lot from it in the process. I already have even early on.
Let’s look at the early schedule for the remainder of May: tour of Tirana with VAC and the new trainees, where I’ll give a presentation about what VAC is and collect names for a later election; my normal load of classes at the high school; a special events day at the language school that I’ve been handpicked to help organize; a training session in Elbasan for 30+ people to help non-teachers with ideas for English teaching; elections for new VAC members in Elbasan on the same day; a weekend trip to Croatia with my school and finally, the Special Olympics. June is the start of the World Cup, so I plan on spending some time with a friend in southern Albania to cheer Team Germany; I’ll be working on the planning stages of the mid-service conference; school will be ending and an Albanian friend will spend half of the month on the beach so we’ll be spending time together. Throw in private courses with all different students weekly, another issue of the newsletter, and my friend Priscilla’s visit for a large chunk of July, and August is really the only somewhat free month and even then we’ll have the mid-service conference. I have to carry my schedule around with me and write everything down because there’s too much going on. It’s not unpleasant and I still feel comfortable, but after a year here, I’m going to start saying no to people.
Finally being consistently busy makes me think back to last year when I arrived on site. It was so hard to feel like I was doing much of anything once the school year started. I never felt like it was a competition by any means, but you sometimes feel that other volunteers are better adjusted or just working better than you, and it can eat at you. It took me a long time to get settled in here and to meet enough people to start several balls rolling. And trust me, it’s not even about getting a ball rolling. You literally have to run with a ball the whole way, pushing it as you go since most projects and ideas are your babies… and your babies alone. It’s taken me a year to build up a network of students and potential collaborators. The thing is, I don’t think it could have gone any faster than it did. As I mentioned, there are lots of setbacks in any process here. You can never just come up with an idea and make it happen. There’s coffees to drink, some selling to be done, identifying people to help… and then making sure that everyone follows through. I’m lucky to have met people that are genuinely interested in my ideas and sharing their ideas with me.
I thought I’d have it easy, being assigned to a high school. “How hard can it be to define your role there?” I thought. It turns out that it’s difficult, although not as difficult as people working in the municipalities and health centers around Albania. It’s been hard for some people to find work. A year in, and some people still haven’t consistently found much of anything to be doing. It can be very trying when you’re in that phase. Maybe you aren’t going to work daily or aren’t meeting with your assigned counterpart or you aren’t on the same page. On days when it’s really bad, you would be hard pressed to find a reason that you’re here. Those are the worst days. But Marx and I agree that work puts value into a person’s life, and even on the days when I feel like ripping all my hair out and getting on the plane, I couldn’t ever do it. Because I feel responsible for my students and for my community. Sometimes all I need to do is think about my work here and that is enough for me.
So having gone through the phase of having very little to do, I have a very low tolerance for volunteers who are still experiencing this problem. We’ve been in our communities for a year. I’ve always been someone who has believed that if you really want to work, you’ll find something. And although there are certain caveats with that way of thinking here, I still believe that. We are a year in, some volunteers aren’t ever at their sites. Some have given up hope of having a meaningful service. Some are here to party. More than what is acceptable have little grasp on the language, which contributes to the inability to find projects. I know what it’s like to be in a similar situation, and I’m still guided by the belief that you are always responsible. In this case, you’re responsible for your inability to find work. It’s here, but sometimes you really, really have to look for it. And that’s the difficult part.
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