Successes and Shortcomings

Now that the end is near, I begin to reflect more and more on what this experience has been. Lately, I've been wondering with quite disturbing frequency whether anything I have done here has actually done anything. All Peace Corps volunteers know this feeling comes. We all know our expectations can be high, and we all know we have to learn to manage those. We all know we have to look for the small, everyday successes, not wide-sweeping changes. We all know we have to manage the guilt of not being able to right all wrongs and injustices. It's unreasonable and damn near impossible. I have had this picture in my head of the work I do consistently over the past two years, a metaphor for how this “community work” goes. That picture is essentially a handful of carefully selected darts being thrown at a dart board at a long distance. I'm not a stellar dart player so some of the darts hit the wall, most hit the board, and once in a while I hit near the bullseye. I have always felt that the projects I've done, the information I give, the medium in which it is given, are like the darts—some hitting the board, some not. Somehow the ones that look like bullseyes at first drop outside the circle later and become vastly less satisfying. Over the course of service I have lived with this dart-throwing metaphor and been okay with it. I knew I wasn't going to “change the world” when I got into this business. I did wish, however, that, perhaps, I might change someone's world.

I have done a lot of things that will look very satisfying on a resume, things I will be glad to say “I did that,” “I experienced that.” Things that would make very good “successes” especially outside Peace Corps. It's been a busy month as we've been struggling to get started projects that have been in the works for ages, and wrap up others. It's been a bit of a self-confidence roller coaster as well, feeling both successful and dissatisfaction in everything.

First there was our Camp GGLOW, which was a lot the same as last year—30 some junior high school boys and girls, but we PCV organizers did try to tweak the focus of the curriculum a little. This time we decided to talk about gender inequality, reproductive health and sexual decision making. In order to tackle the widespread teen pregnancy problem, we decided to supplement the abstinence only education with lots of information about how to choose good partners and how to protect yourself from the risks of sex when you finally decide to have it or when you have no choice, because girls have a lot less power in the decisions whether or not to have sex than people like to admit. We talked about how pregnancy happens, biologically; what happens at puberty; about family planning; about proper condom use; and about HIV. We had guest speakers come and talk to the kids about gender roles and equalities, human rights, HIV and other things. Serious topics for a camp, right? But we also did fun and sort of frivolous things like watch The Lion King, paint calabash bowls, screen print camp T-shirts, produce a talent show, play Uno and dance the Hokey Pokey (which was a big hit, let me tell you). We PCVs even got a bunch of our pictures together to show them of America. We explained snow, fishing, weddings, Christmas trees and jack-o-lanterns, and Big Ten football games. The kids had a blast as did the staff, and though I always wish our Camp GGLOWs were more “campy”, I was never a sufficient enough camp counselor to make that happen. It's enough, I guess, to get them out of their villages, expose them to topics they often don't get to talk about openly, and meet other kids. It's trite and cliché and a bit of a pity party, to wonder if what we did had any real impact on these kids. Camp GGLOWs all over Peace Corps have proven time and time again to be very successful and impactful projects, but essentially, in the midst of such insurmountable problems, how can even these immensely successful projects have any real impact? How can our teaching and advice to girls about sexual decision making, family planning, avoiding teen pregnancy, building self esteem, creating futures ever have any impact when teachers coercing girls to sleep with them is so wide-spread and so entrenched in Ghanaian schools? And that's only one example.

A week after we concluded the camp, I was back in Damanko doing a similar, truncated version of the program for our girls' football tournament. A few months back a couple of the teams came to Kwesi and asked if we could organize a tournament for them like we did for the boys last year. I gave them an enthusiastic “yes” as long as there was enough interest. Though there are plenty that like to play and play well, girls' football is a whole lot less organized. Still, it was a good opportunity to speak to them about teen pregnancy, about sex and family planning. Many of the schools organized teams and a couple groups from the town organized themselves into a couple of teams, so all in all, we had 8 teams for the tournament. Linda, a new PCV from the next town over, came by to help out and with her and Kwesi's help, we prepared a very successful education day the day before the tournament started. The girls played hard and everyone enjoyed watching them. The winner's bundle was enough sodas for everyone, a couple footballs, knit caps with professional football club patches on them, and a box of condoms. It's great to get so many girls together to talk about topics that are serious problems in their community and in their daily lives, but I still see so many blank faces looking up at me, because no matter how simply I try to explain things, the language barrier is still a problem. Sometimes it's still a problem even with a translator to help. Again, darts on a dart board. Which pieces of advice stick and how many do? I'm not sure we even made a dent in the “teen pregnancy problem,” but the event happened, things were taught, and the girls had fun. That's a success in one way.

I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the countable projects I've done over the past couple years have been big, focused, one-time events like this where we take one opportunity to educate as many people in one place at one time as possible. They require lots of planning, organization, thinking on your feet, money, and are easy to quantify in reports at the end. And when they're done, they're done and you can move on to the next thing. This style of community work is where I get the dartboard visual, because I never really know what impacts come of them. I don't know all the participants personally and I can't follow up on many of them in the future. Conventional Peace Corps wisdom says that our greatest impacts, our greatest work comes from the far smaller scale, one-on-one relationships we form—friendships and mentorships and such like. And to be honest, those are a lot more satisfying in the long run.

After these larger event-projects were finished, I was able to look to those relationships since they have no schedule. Things like one on one computer lessons for one student who has been bugging me for ages and really does deserve them. Or following up on that one seriously malnourished child that I saw at the clinic and taking a personal interest in his and his mother's diet. Or continue planning with a local NGO future meetings for our youth business group made up of girls who, for their own safety, need to learn independent business skills. Or rewarding Kwesi's brothers for helping run the tournament by organizing a match for their teams and giving them one of the prize footballs. These little things make me feel like a real Peace Corps Volunteer and I'm glad I don't have any more big events to do.