back pain and complaining

5.18.08 8:30


Awww my back! I am laying on this foldout couch right now in a lot of pain. Its Sunday morning I just threw my back out and now I have the whole day ahead of me to try to recover. I dunno, my host dad thinks its because I was running outside and then took off my shirt (because it was fairly hot out) and the change in air temperature on my back caused my back to lock up. I dunno it could be the case. I ran about 5 laps then stripped the shirt. By the time I got to 10 and started to sprint the straight away instant lock down and here I am whining about it.

This week ugg was a set back. Just as I was coming off of a week of trying to get things figured out with my work and had begun going to local villages peace corps called me Monday afternoon and said we have a driver in the area in 10 minutes get your stuff and meet him at this location. I was in the middle of hide in seek with the kids (very busy) but I complied. I figured it was just gonna be a one shot deal and I would be back the next day. I took nothing with me but a book and a change of underwear. So I get to chisnau and they are closed for the day so I have to stay the night. I get my diagnoses Tuesday that I would be there till Thursday getting some rabies booster shots. Ugg… So I spent the week in Chisinau hangning out with other people who are sick leave. It was not a horrible time but I felt worthless.

The worst part about the stay was the negativity. There was some older volunteers there I was able to talk to about where I was and my concerns on the rest of my service being productive and what not. They all had some very discouargeing things to say for the most part. When I talked with other members in my group there they were in the same boat as I was with partners who really had nothing for them to do and they were just kinda killing time at their site waiting for something to come up. The older volunteers were voicing there frustrations that even after being here all this time people here they have met don’t really want them to be there unless they can write them grants or the volunteer does the work for them (either by writing the whole grant, writing the whole project and carrying it all out themselves). And guess what after the volunteer gives up on the job as a facilitator they are more happy, feel more productive and their counterparts seem to be happy they received money for a grant or credit for something they didn’t do. I know I am being extremely negative here, and I know this can’t be true for everybody but it was just depressing to listen to.

The problem with this is that once this active volunteer who took the time to write a grant or a project or created some program leaves so does any hope of sustainability. Unless the partner or host country national gets involved and learns and cares about the project the idea, the passion runs out. This idea of sustainability is the hardest thing to work for but it is also the best possible solution to any problem out here. My experiences this week were discouraging. I fell into that category of volunteer I realized that was about to just do the work, or write the grant just to feel productive. On this bench project for instance I made the volunteers write the project but they only wrote 75% of it. That was 2 weeks ago. And to get them to finish the rest was becoming impossible. So I wrote it, I wrote it badly given my language ability but I did th work, I organized everything and felt like finally this is done! Then I got some of them to meet up with me finally and had them correct or rewrite what I wrote. You know what… I failed! I went from facilitator to doer. I did this because the school year is over soon. And part of the plan is to raise money from the schools and we have to get this plan done before we can raise the money. And with 2 weeks left to go we had to get our stuff together. Without this we miss out on a huge fundraising opportunity.. at least I hope it is a huge one because we need it.

At work I am near the point of trying to write a grant for the only partner that works for me to get him his fish pond near this lake so he can raise fish. Its not right, I don’t’ feel right about it but I think I could win a grant for it and he would be happy and so would the organization and so would peace corps because they could say I did something. But its crap! It goes all back to the idea of success here. There idea of success is that I bring money here for them, my idea is not the bring money for them but to help them raise the money for themselves and feel as if they did it. “if the coach does the push ups the athlete will not get stronger.”

Awww!!!!!! I just got up to take some ibuprofen for my back and nearly fell down in pain. I guess I really jacked myself up here. Oh geez…This is just what I need. Anyway… I made some connections yesterday meeting people responsible for the park and then someone who works closely with the mayor. All this could help me in the long run but also with this current project if I can get them involved in helping out a little. The plan now is to raise as much money as possible for the benches from the school, then mayors office and then local businesses. And I am also the only one pushing the possibility of this being a success. I am feeling a lot of negativity as if I am carrying this project on my shoulders. I feel this is something they want because they all said this is the project they wanted and people I have asked all support it I just don’t understand this can’t do it attitude. I feel as it is a challenge and I have to prove to these kids if they do some work they can get results here. It’s the work im having a hard time getting them to do.

I feel pretty helpless here, my back is shot and this bench project is in limbo. Hmm nothing really funny happened to me this week I guess… there was this drunk old man on the street that shook my hand then tried to do some karate move on me showing how if somebody gives him their hand he can break it. It was comical and this old woman of his slapped him telling him to stop. I am currently reading a book called “Lies my teacher told me, everything your American history book got wrong. “ so far very interesting, it has some interesting points thus far about how horrible Columbus really was and how the history books exaerate his feat and glorifiy his successes and down play his failures and the otracities he infact carried out. There was also a blurb about Hellen Keller and how she was an outspoken socialist supporter and all this other stuff about here. Its funny when you think about all this stuff you took as fact when really they were quite fiction or sugar coated. .. Ok this is a crummy entry but I had to get it out and down on paper here. Love you all family.