PCVS-ing

...that was my attempt at a clever title, that was supposed to sound like PMSing.  I am calling my current state of mind PCVSing (Peace Corps Volunteer Syndrome) because my honeymoon period with my site is officially over, and I have without a doubt entered into the "high's and low's" that all the sage volunteers talk about.

You all may remember that in training, I was doing absolutely great and then one day, the cobrador on the combi refused to give me my change back, because I looked like someone who wouldn't know better.  That led to a flood of tears as soon as I stepped off the combi, and all of the little stressers I had ignored for weeks just came rushing out in a wave of emotion.  I tend to do that- I can handle a high load of stress, but if it goes on for too long, I will eventually snap with a tiny trigger.

Here at site, I knew that "snapping" moment was coming, I just couldn't feel when it was going to happen. I was too content, too positive, all just bad signs that I was suppressing something.  Sure enough, I got in a very small disagreement with my host family, and suddenly I was mess.  As I was crying, I kept thinking "Oh thank God, thank God I am finally getting this out, the anticipation was killing me," so overall it made me feel better.  I was triggered though, because of a cultural difference that led to both parties getting offended and me feeling extremely frustrated that the other party didn't understand why I was upset.  It's something that I will have to deal with for two years, and the thought of that is really overwhelming.

After that, I haven't felt nearly as positive in my work.  First, I got really upset about not being invited by the Municipality to an important regional meeting that I found out another volunteer had been invited to, and I had specifically asked to be invited.  The next day, I walked in to find 3 new tourism interns with the organigrama (organizational chart) of the personnel that I had been asking for for the last month.  Basically, I work with a lot of people who are always busy and I feel like I have a hard time getting anything done or found, and others (locals) are able to walk in and get exactly what they need.  Lastly, I've been trying to get a pen-pal program off the ground between a high school English class here and a high school Spanish class taught by my former teacher at Langley, Sñra Prell.  I purposely decided to work in Monsefú with a teacher and school that "could use a lot of help," and because of that, we have made no progress on getting the exchange set-up.  The worst part about all the little stressers over the past 5 weeks or so is that I don't always have an outlet to vent about them, and I especially can't vent about anything in detail on this blog for a variety of reasons, #1 being that I would essentially be talking behinds people's backs to the entire internet.

Luckily, this morning swung me back into positivity.  I was determined to sit in the Public Relations/Tourism office until I got everything done that I needed, and I succeeded- and then some!  I was able to express a few ideas for the events of Monsefú's anniversary (all of October) that were well received, I finally got the word that the website-guy will put up tourism info as long as I send him the text and pictures, and some other small victories.  Best of all, I met another new tourism intern who is specifically interested in artesanía and is interested in helping me conduct the artisan surveys, starting tomorrow!  Lastly, a guy from the regional government came in looking for a lot of data that the employees didn't know where to find, and I happen to be looking for a lot of the same data- we exchanged info and I told him that I would pass along what I had found so far, so I think that I won some appreciation from the Municipality.

I'm also feeling great because I will be talking today or tomorrow with the Business Development Manager of SEED, an organization I worked in at UVa- we are going to talk about the possibility of having some SEED teams support my artisan projects here, especially in terms of websites and marketing.  If this goes through, it will be enormous support to me.

My moods here are mostly governed by how supported I feel in my work, and that varies drastically from day to day.  However, the good days seem to make up for the bad days, or I at least think that I will look back on the bad days and be glad I worked through them.  It also helps that I have a fantastic host family, and even though there are certain substantial cultural barriers, they sincerely care about me and we have some great moments.  Within two weeks of me being here, my host dad said it felt like we had met in another life!  They also liked my tortilla chips, guacamole, and pesto pasta so much that they've asked me to make them again, so even if I still feel useless in other places, at least I can make my family happy where it counts, with food.