Motives and Rain

March 13, 2007

7:45 AM

Motives and Motivation.

I do a lot of thinking about motives and motivation here. My own, other volunteers, my fellow teachers, my friends here in country; I think about them a lot.

Why am I here? I made the decision to join Peace Corps, but for what reason? I love what I am doing, wouldn’t give it up for anything. But still, there were motives behind me wanting to leave the US for two years, to get up and leave everything I loved and go live on the other side of the planet. I wish I could paint a clear picture of my motives, to you and to me, but they don’t really ever come out clear when I think about them. Most of the time when I think about my motivations, my reasoning, I tend to drift to other people in my life here.

I look at my counterparts, the two wonderful women who I have been working with at my school for the past year. I hate it that sometimes I wonder what is driving them and what their motives for being so helpful are. It is a crappy thing to do, honestly; to question someone’s reasoning for hard-work and dedication. But I am human, it happens.

Whenever I start to think about/question their motives, I start with the simple: they are helping me help the school because they have an inner desire to create a better world for others. It can be just that simple; they have a passion to help. They are good people who are doing good acts and have teamed up with me to do good things.

But what if their passions are to create a better life for their children? Is that such a bad thing? Every parent wants a better life for their children. Every parent wants their children to grow up and become something bigger and greater than they may have achieved in their lifetime. Both of my counterparts have younger children that will be at the school for a long while to come.

My sick act of questioning comes into play here. Sometimes I wonder if their motivation to deal with my pestering, my caffeine induced craze to create plans to make the school into something beautiful, is partially (if not entirely) motivated by the fact that their children will benefit from what we will be able to accomplish. Is that a bad thing? It could be a good thing. It is a good thing. But it could also be a bad thing.

What if they didn’t have any children at the school, would they still be a dedicated to helping me? Helping the school? I have heard from other teachers stories of some of the oldest teachers at our school. There are a few teachers who should have retired long ago, but need the paychecks (as small as it is) to support their families. There are stories that circulate throughout the school about how these teachers will come to school and just sit down in their lessons, not teaching anything. They just let the students goof off and bide time for the day to end, the month to end, and their paycheck to come.

There is so much twisted up into this that it’s hard to criticize motives here. Can you fault someone who is in their late sixties who cannot afford to retire? Many times the stories about these teachers are preceded with stories about how they once used to be the best of teachers, some of them directors in neighboring village schools. What happened to them, at what point did their passion for creating a better world for the future leave them. Were they worn down by the world outside of school? Inside of school?

It hurts to see these teachers; you can see a lifetime of wonder and struggle in them. They could have been some of the most lively and inspired people in this country at some point. But now they have accepted a reality of life only they can see and are trying to do their best to keep their families afloat.

It is not just teachers; many people I’ve met here in country have given me an incredible glimpse into human emotion and struggle. The majority of people I meet here with children sing the same tune: they work, struggle, and do all they can so that their children may one day have a better life than they have had.

But then there are the people I meet that like to contradict this sentiment. They are the most interesting cases, the most interesting display of a motive driven life. It is sad because a large portion of people are lost in the image and stories they hear from the world beyond Kyrgyzstan (American roads paved in gold…). Many hear or see (thanks MTV) a world that involves frivolous spending of money and the lavish world of the pop-rap world (go 50 Cent, good thing you can bathe in Cristal, simple tap-water might make the gold fade from your candy-coated ego).

People here see these images and are driven by them (not all the time, but sadly, a lot). I know of families here that have purchased a DVD player and full speaker system at the price of three month’s worth of salary. Meanwhile, while they listen to the latest fabricated “tough-life” story of some useless American rapper, their daughter will be sharing a pen with three of her friends throughout her day of lessons.

Yeah, you are reading this now and saying, “Here goes Jason on his ‘the world is starving while we eat steaks’ rant.” But I can’t help it, it is sad to watch how some of the shittiest parts of the American culture have made the biggest impact here in Kyrgyzstan (why couldn’t U2 and Mama Cash—look it up—have become stars in this country?).

I am here though to help remove some of these misconceptions and help give a more realistic picture of America. Ok, so yeah, that is a role that I realize I play here, but that cannot, is not, and was not my only motive for coming here. Why am here? Did the idea of being able to return to the states (at my 10-year high school reunion) and be able to drop the “yeah, I served in Peace Corps Central Asia for two years” line sound appealing? Sort of the same way that a high school freshman goes to a concert with his friends to see a band he does not particularly like, but does so that he can they be able to say the next week, “yeah, I saw Limp Bizkit at Halloween show, it was sweet.”

Sure I am here to help, and so are all the other volunteers, but is there something else behind it? Some volunteers are escaping ‘starting life in the real world,’ some volunteers are building a resume, some volunteers are completing grad school, and some volunteers are here to genuinely to help.

Motives are not always visible and sometimes mean absolutely nothing. But they can, and do, guide life. I am busting my ass to give my village everything I have, but I thrive on the rewards that may come from my actions.

“We are proud of you Jason.”

“You are doing what we’ve always wanted to do.”

“You are really making a difference.”

“You really have some guts to give it all up to get out there and help.”

I love these comments, I love words of encouragement. These words are an intricate part of my motivation to be here. Would I really be able to do what I am doing if I wasn’t supported? I am human, to know that if people see what I am doing as noble, it makes me feel special. I am not trying to disvalue my work or the wonderful words I have receive from family and friends.

I am simply trying to say that while my counterparts may be motivated by means outside of the simple desire to help, so am I.

“So what you been up to for the past few years?”

“Oh, not much; traveled a bit, graduated from college, served a few years in Peace Corps.”

We are all human, even you Vincent Xavier.



So I’ll keep fighting to live till there’s no reason to fight.
And I’ll keeping trying to see until the end is in sight.
You know I’m trying to give, so come on give me a try.
You know I’m dying to live until I’m ready to die.
— Jonny Lang



March 14, 2007

7:30 AM


A pebble
in a boulder pile
has a few options.
Accept the loss,
make friends,
or act big.



March 14, 2007

7:45 AM


*** A Note to the Readers ***

I would like to thank all of you who take time out of your busy lives to take interest in mine. It is inevitable that most of you have a lot of things going on in life. Things that create a busy situation, a situation where reading this blog can be time consuming. So I want to thank you all. There are a lot of people reading this that have taken a vested interest in my life’s happenings. Sometimes is feels hypocritical of me to be writing a blog about my life here, while half the people that read the blog I have no idea what is going on in their lives.

For that, I thank you all; and I also want to apologize for sometimes taking advantage of your interest in reading the blog. Sometimes I get lost in rambling, sometimes I write random poems, sometimes conversations with Fiona. All of these tend to drift away from what is actually happening with my life here. And in doing so, I am kind of taking advantage of the fact that I have a reader base willing to read what I write in the blog (no matter what may be put in there).

So I apologize for sometimes drifting off, and I thank you all for taking the time to read my random ramblings and brief stories about my life here.

--JAL--



March 18, 2007

11:00 AM

I woke up this morning to something beautiful: rain.

Oh, it smelled so good. It smelled like Spring, it smelled like flowers, it smelled like warm weather and growth! I will like when Spring arrives; a lot.


‘Lost in…”’

There she was
thinking ‘bout
it all; the
surroundings.
Deep in thought
lost to the
world around
HER.

He was there
watching her,
thinking ‘bout
her thoughts and
her blue eyes.
Hoping that
she’ll glance at
HIM.