Well, that was brutal. It’s the conclusion of our PACA community analysis assignment, and I’m not sure I accurately portrayed a Peace Corps Volunteer, after all. For clarification purposes, just what exactly is a PCV? What do they do? What do they not do? Well, training has taught me that a PCV is a “grassroots ambassador” and a “community development facilitator.” They are good representatives of their country. They help with communities learning how to help themselves by showing leadership (partially), giving different perspectives and teaching new methods. They show the community how to work with and improve what they’ve got. They don’t head up projects, donate money or come with existing supplies. What can I offer as a PCV? That’s a related, but separate and ambivalent subject. Although, not in the minds of our dear organization.
When 10 adults showed up on Saturday to help us do our community analysis and needs ranking, we were thrilled. What with the wonderful speech the leader gave on Thursday and how well I thought I expressed our intent. Though the afternoon became more of a time to talk abut the one need of the hour – a community center – and what we could do to get it. Mary, Beth and I were overwhelmed, because it wasn’t how we planned it to go, and we weren’t trained nor equipped to actually respond to the needs! All we wanted to do was hear a couple thoughts and suggestions; ideally, 5, because that’s what the practice book used. It did seem like a cruel exercise, for the organization, at least. “Hey, we’re gonna help you think of what the community needs and what you could do about it- then we’re gonna leave and help our own real communities with what we’ve learned from you. Thanks!” When it seemed like we were only opening a can of worms we weren’t capable of closing, we decided to come back this Thursday to offer some sort of conclusion. We felt obligated, plus needed to step out of the situation to gain a little perspective before we could adequately conclude our time with them. Obviously, we’d have to re-re-re-iterate we were only here to get them thinking and as trainee’s, we can offer them the next step, which luckily came to us in the for our of last PACA assignment today. Staff gave us the SWOT analysis, which looks at Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a potential project. If anything, I figured we could give them some realistic things to consider as well as some knowledge that could help build and keep a solid foundation for project implementation. But halfway through our SWOT with them, it apparently finally dawned on the leader that the three of us were not there to head the projects ourselves, and do not come baked with resources – just ourselves, and we’d be leaving for our official assignment soon. As one of the many packets we’ve given says, “The focus of the volunteer’s work is on people, not things.” The leader didn’t quite accept that. I tried to stress this to her, though. But she ended up bluntly asking in away where only a blunt answer would suffice (making the three of us look like stooges) if all we had come to do was get some information for ourselves. Because, basically, yeah. Even if we could see the project through, we wouldn’t have known how to! We don’t know how to write grants, or coordinate a community-wide project! We haven’t learned that yet, I don’t have those skills! Action was expected (legitimately or not) and I could not deliver. “Talk about shooting down a (wo)man’s horse – whaaap!” This was the first cold shower awakening that things of this magnitude are going to be expected of me in the next two years. Well, maybe not expected, but certainly presented at my feet.
My first instinct was to freeze up and shut down from the overstimulation of the situation. Incompetency swarmed over me and the weight of responsibility was heavy. But, there was this secret source of strength within me (very cool, I might add) that knew this was just a learning process and (hopefully) the experience would come and give way to knowledge. I apologized or potentially misleading anyone at the organization we told them that for any project to succeed, you needed to have a strong foundation with all the kinks worked out, and hopefully we gave them the skills for that. Beth told them she’d pass their info on to the PCV’s staying here on the coast and we stressed that hey could give them ideas and perspectives not objects. Then we got out of there!
What a trial to go through! Its interesting cause I know we left there, not satisfying them (the leader, at least) which I do feel bad for, but knowing what had happened was so significant to me. I certainly learned from this failure – if it can be called that. I don’t really think it was. Man, there’s a lot I have to learn. And to do. As for the organization, many of the adults there still smiled and thanked us for coming. So, we got our assignment done, but could have done better with out interactions with our organization. I think we partially jumped the guns when the novelty of community interaction getting the better of us. But I certainly learned a lot.
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