Three Key Lessons Learned in Year One

This month I had my one year anniversary for living in my Malagasy village. I've already spent one whole year in my community! Looking back on this Year One of my Peace Corps service, I definitely can sum it up as a totes adaladala experience. I saw a lot of places, did a lot of things, and felt a lot of feels. Through the adventures, trials, and seasons of it all, the lessons I have learned are beyond measure. And because the lessons are many and sometimes indescribable, it has taken me a while to process them all. But in this reflection, I've identified three lessons that I have had the greatest impact on me at this time...

Lesson 1: Not only can I still be friends with people I disagree with, but I can actually learn a whole lot from them even as we disagree.

Jamie and Brienne in Game of Thrones. Image from tumbler

It's not easy to be around people who don't see eye-to-eye with you, whether that be in politics, values, cultural differences, or the quality of Justin Bieber's music. Because of this, I think it is often too easy for us to surround ourselves with only the people and ideas we agree with and then shut out, dismiss, or even become aggressive towards anything opposite or outside of our set way of thinking. I sometimes did this in the United States whether I meant to or not; I did know several people very different from myself, but I never had to spend time with them on a consistent basis or build more meaningful relationships with them because is was so easy and convenient to surround myself with people just like me. But now that I'm in Madagascar, that is no longer an option simply because people just like me don't exist here. So, in this last year on the Red Island I've been strongly challenged to live, work, and go to a deeper human level with people different from me on an everyday basis.

Tropical Depression

Wow, has it really been five months since I've written my last blog post?

Oops.

Well, anyway, the good news is that I'm still kickin' and livin' in Madagascar, and despite my blogging silence, these last few months have indeed been eventful. For example, I:

-Went on a Thanksgiving trip to the east coast (50% work, 50% play)
-Facilitated volleyball games and drills at a Peace Corps sports camp
-Went on a Christmas/New Years trip on the west coast
-Taught nutrition at a school's youth health club in my region
-Visited a cocoa farm
-Visited an awesome national park near my home (Ankarana Park)
-Hung out with my awesome community
-Started a Volunteer sports and fitness group
-Completed more of my home gym
-Began planning activities and projects for my second year of service
-Survived rainy season!!!

Yet, while these last few months didn't lack in eventfulness, they weren't exactly easy, either. During the rainy season (December-March) travel and work become much more difficult. Road outages were a huge problem all throughout my region, and otherwise it wasn't unusual for me to often be stuck inside my house. So things felt a bit slooooooooooow, and, at times slightly depressing. Doesn't it sound so poetic, though, to feel depressed while it's raining? I thought so, which led me to write this about rainy season:

Rainy season in Madagascar
A season of grey and green
A season of cloudy days
A season of cool nights
A season of stillness
A season of growth
A season of mold and mildew
A season of trial
A season of thought
A tropical depression 

It's no top 20 country song, but you get the point. And while rainy season was a little slow, depressing, and inconvenient, there was, if you will, also a silver lining. First of all, the crops and vegetation were pretty happy from the rain at least. Second of all, coming out of rainy season, I actually feel much more connected with and comfortable in my community and Madagascar. I think that might be because I really had to buckle down in life to keep myself from going totally insane; in the process, I was reminded of how much I truly love being here in Madagascar, how great my neighbors are, and how much I care about fulfilling my two-year mission and commitment. Now I'm even happier and more confident about where I am and what I'm doing here. 

That's the neat thing about rain...a tropical depression might be a storm, but its nature facilitates growth. And a period of depression might be a tribulation, but it can be an opportunity to foster strength. So it goes with my rainy season in Madagascar. 

Darcy vs. Nature: The Mango Tree

I've had an interesting problem at my house lately. 

Mango tree branches hang 12 feet over my tin roof, and while raindrops pattering on a tin roof sound nice, big fat mangos hailing down on it do not. It is full into mango season right now, and I love mangos, but many of these looming tropical frenemies have been gracing me with their booming arrivals. Either the neighborhood kids shake the mangos down while I'm inside the house, which sounds like WWIII has descended upon me, or the mangos go unshaken and drop on their own in the middle of the night to wake me up. So I've been caught in a lose-lose situation... Until today.