Loneliness

Tongariki is a weird little place. At first, I had interminable (and stupid) debates with myself--is this place in the bush? Is this place not bush?--but I've gotten over that sort of nit picking. I sometimes think that no one else (except the volunteer on BNG) is ever going to understand what it's really like for me. The boat comes once a week (if it comes); it's half my monthly salary one way to try to fly out of Tongoa; it's a small island and, although I can see plenty of other islands from my school grounds, I rarely leave. I can't always buy credit for my phone. And I don't really see anyone.

I'll admit that I'm very jealous of volunteers on Santo, Tanna, Efate,--they can socialize with each other, which is awesome and should never be underrated. During training, I had no idea of how strange being in the Peace Corps is. Furthermore, I had no idea how much I would want to be around other Americans--how desperate I would feel some days to just be able to talk with someone who would understand me. Luckily, I was able to see Elyse, Stephanie, and Monica during Term 1 for a few days, but other than that, I only speak English on the phone. If I could change my site to somewhere with more volunteers, I'm not sure that I wouldn't do it. During training, I know that I and some other volunteers got caught up in this idea that bush was best--that, like, the harder the environment, the better--which I'm now aware was completely misguided, stupid, and pointless. You've got to make it through two years, and, honestly, why not make it with friends? It's going to be hard for everyone anyway.

In a lot of ways, though, it feels like I'm getting the classic Peace Corps experience. I live in a hut. I've eaten dog and flying fox and sea turtle and more root vegetables than I would have thought possible. I've seen kastom ceremonies, I've drunk a good amount of kava, and I've gotten a hearty South Pacific dose of church. I just can't avoid integration as the resident "waet misus" on an island of 200 people, and that's something I need to be more grateful for. My counterpart is fantastic, my host family is astonishingly kind and generous, and the islanders are very friendly. I don't think anyone on Tongariki really understands me, but they try, and I never feel completely alone in a physical sense.

Still, sometimes I feel almost cripplingly lonely--like I'm out here on this rock all by myself and no one back home cares and everyone else in the Peace Corps is having more fun than I am. (I'm well aware that this isn't true, but sometimes you just want to feel like a martyr, so bear with me as I indulge in self-pity.) Everything is just so intense here, good and bad, that it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. It's funny to think back on all of the documents Peace Corps had me fill out before I departed--forms with questions about how I would deal with loneliness and what I would do to deal with depression/isolation/homesickness. It's become abundantly obvious to me over the last seven and a half months that, emotionally speaking, I'm built like a tank--knock me hard and I'll keep going--but it's just so funny that we ever filled out those forms to begin with. I had no idea how I'd deal with this kind of loneliness before I had to experience it! I literally had no basis for comparison whatsoever. I got my baptism with fire and found out that I'm as tenacious as I need to be, but I had no way to know that beforehand. You just do what you can--and when you have a bad day, you make something special for dinner (like instant mashed potatoes), you listen to music, and you go to bed early. The next day, you'll wake up, and it's a new day. There's nothing else to do except wait your feelings out, and do your best not to be physically alone too much. What else can you really do?