Rewards

Working in the Blue Creek Library

Sometimes I forget just how rewarding even the simplest things can be. This week was an especially rewarding one, if somewhat average. The last two weekends Blue Creek has hosted other Peace Corps Volunteers, giving us a chance to show off our wonderful village and some of the great things we do here. Walking with strangers through my village is such an affirming experience, knowing all the names, inside jokes, and people treating me like their neighbor. Seeing it through the eyes of my guests was very renewing.








Last Sunday a local tour guide invited me along with Jeff and Mike (another Toledo PCV) on a 6am jungle hike to one of the peaks surrounding Blue Creek as a thanks for me helping him study for an upcoming tour guide certification test. Nothing says reward like the top of hill, well except for maybe a cold beer after a ten mile bike ride (that was on Saturday). I’ve been up a couple of hills around the village, but this one was a 45 minute non-switchback incline that ended at an amazing limestone drop-off of about 1,000 feet. And way down below I could see my tiny little house and the tiny little village. While no mountain by Cascade or Rocky standards, this was an impressive vantage point that allows for view all the way to the Caribbean Sea on a clear day. Unfortunately, slash and burn farming is in full force right now and visibility is at about 4 miles instead of the usual 20, but the effect of the smoke on the fresh daylight was undeniably enchanting.

Then there is my work, the actual stuff I do which I realize that I hardly document but is none-the-less the reason I get to live off of the government for two years while living in the tropics. My favorite and most rewarding is my work at the library, because deep down I secretly envy the life of librarians. Surrounded by books and inspiring children to push themselves to read more challenging books than they imagined possible. My sister used to mock me for choosing a book over the mall or going downtown, which I can’t really blame her, I was a nerd. But now I get to channel that inner bookworm and help kids discover the books I loved as a young adult, we even have some Baby Sitter’s Club and Harry Potter at the Blue Creek Library! Along with my usual work at the school and library this week, I also met with the new village council, which is eager to work with me, and the PTA, who are struggling to agree on how to help the school but at least recognize the necessity of their work. And Thursday was the district final of the national Spelling Bee which I attended as a chaperone. One of Blue Creek’s own was one the winner of the regional, so we cheered her on as she came in 5th. The kids in my village don’t learn English until Kindergarten, so I love seeing them compete against the “city kids” who have grown up with English as a first language.

A full and rewarding week, just the kind that they put in the brochures about Peace Corps. Bike riding, village council meeting, conflict resolution, hiking, checking out books to a crowd of eager kids, and ending it all by pulling up in a hammock with a cool drink, an ipod full of music, and my trusty lap-top computer.

Blue Creek Village: A Tiny Piece of Heaven