Four Weeks In

sa-waat-dii
Hello and welcome to my blog documenting my Peace Corps service.

As you can read in my profile, I am currently "serving" in Thailand as a community-based development worker. I use quotations here, because as of yet, I have not done ANYTHING that I would consider being in service to other. Quite the opposite, actually; I find myself taking more than giving.

At this point in my Peace Corps stint, I am still in pre-service training (PST in PC lingo ;) and for this time, I am staying with a host family. My host parents are a super sweet older couple that are raising their grand-daughter (her parents are still alive, she's just being raised by the paternal grandparents- not really sure why, but it seems to be fairly common). Every morning Yaa cooks breakfast for me and every night dinner is ready before I even get home. So I have little chance of helping with the cooking. I try to do the dishes as much as possible, but sometimes they don't want me to even try! Beyond all that, no one in the house speaks English and I still can hardly string together a coherent sentence in Thai, so communication is a bit difficult. Further more, I know I have a "crank face" and wear my emotions amplified on my face. By this I mean if I am in the least bit tired, my face looks exhausted. This also means that if I am in an uncomfortable situation, I look terrified- even if I am ok with being uncomfortable. Which I think is hard for Thai people to understand. They are very concerned with making sure everything is hunky-dory, or at the very least- the impression of hunky-doriness being maintained. This most likely will be one of my biggest challenges during my time here in Thailand- learning how to mask my facial emotions better.

That point makes a good segue way to my next topic: the title of my blog and what you can expect from my ramblings.

I grew up with a very strong belief in civic duty, and probably what could be called patriotism. I honestly believed that America was the land of the free and that America's history was one of striving for better social equality. Along the way, this naïveté matured into the belief that communities of people striving for change can achieve amazing things. This combo of a strong sense of civic duty and belief in community led me to two years of service in AmeriCorps and many other volunteer experiences. However, before I ever heard of AmeriCorps, Peace Corps was a personal goal. I have several aunts and uncles that have previously served as Peace Corps volunteers and the idea of a corps of people working for peace still manages to make me swell with hopeful optimism.

In my late teens, when my youthful blind love for America had begun to fade and my realization of the situation of people around the globe began to grow, I knew I wanted to make a difference in this world. Having the family history of Peace Corps, PC became a logical outlet for my desires and was the de facto reason I went to college. At this point in my live, I also naively believed that PC was the opposite of the military and was, in fact a corps of people striving for peace.

My opinions have since changed. I'm not sure what I think or feel about PC and its mission at this point in time- hence the name Between Bad and Good, because at this point I feel PC exemplifies both aspects of America. In a nutshell then, this blog will mostly be me exploring that gray area (or rainbow place?) where so much of life falls. Not at one extreme or the other, but somewhere in the middle. Join me if you want, or don't. mai bpen rai ka