Replacements

That’s what I think of when I hear about the new, green volunteers that arrived here a few weeks ago, to take over for the class that is on their way out the door, or in some cases, already left.

It must be rough for a community to get a replacement volunteer (13 of the 15 new sites being replacement sites). Look at it like this: leaving them is someone who (ideally, although not always realistically) speaks fluent Spanish, has done a number of projects that benefited the community, are integrated within their community, and know the ins-and-outs of the culture and how things are run. In exchange, you tend to get the complete opposite: a young twenty something who is still struggling to speak the language, barely has a grasp on the culture around them, and has no (initial) friends or allies in the community. If you’re reading in between the lines, you’ll notice I’m essentially describing myself when I first got to the Villa.

The aspirantes (trainees) got here a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t until last week when I first got to meet the new group, SBD 59. I expected the new group to essentially be a carbon copy of SBD 56 (my group): shirts buttoned up, tucked in, and essentially a unified group. And I’d be lying if I wasn’t hoping for some babes in the group too. But what we got was a group that seemed to be a lot more relaxed and laid back than we were upon arriving to the country, and that’s not a bad thing, giving the laid back nature of this country. Just different that’s all.

I got to know one of the aspirantes in particular, after he visited my site to observe the daily life of a volunteer, and in my opinion to escape the monotony of training. Just as a home stay is a potentially awkward experience, so is a volunteer visit. Who knows if you’re going to get along with your visitor/host, and a few days can seem like an eternity if you don’t vibe. Unlike some of my friends, I didn’t have that problem, and the aspirante, a David Wolfsin, who had the privilege of coming here, was an awesome guy, remarkably similar to me in a lot of ways. I took him through a day in the life so to speak, starting the week off with a trip to the beach to surf, and then becoming slightly more professional and attending my schools on the remaining days. So aside from the amount of English conversation I was having, and the spare Tonas, it was actually a fairly normal week. What struck with me was how David reacted to my life here in la villa. Very few times in life do you have the opportunity to see a real-life, past version of yourself, but that is essentially one thing I saw in David: myself a year ago. Stumbling Spanish, naivety, and wide eyes. (Dave, if you are reading this, please don’t take offense, you’ll understand what I mean in a year.) Learning a language and accustoming yourself to new surroundings are slow processes and take time. So slow in fact, you often don’t even notice the process or how much you’ve in fact changed, until you’re able to see a past bench mark of yourself. Well folks, I’ve only now realized just how vastly my Spanish has improved, how much I integrated into the culture down here, and for better or worse, the change in myself. And that change shows. He pointed some things out to me that I hadn’t realized I started to do, but were essentially part of my daily life. A prime example is my “symbiotic relationship” with my apartment mates, the critters in my house. If food falls on the ground, I know that it will be gone in an hour or so from some type of critter, so why clean? And as long as the critters stay away from my food, I leave them be. Funny what  year in a third world country can do to you, huh?