Rise Above

It’s really a pain letting everything bother you. Especially when you’re out of your comfort zone and everything is different and has the potential to be bothersome. For example: in the US if you’re at a restaurant and it takes 2 hours to get your food you get mad, maybe throw some things, employ some choice words with the manager and try and get your meal for free (or maybe you just grumble under your breath about how the place sucks and your hungry).

Or when people ask you questions that they already know the answer to: “Where are you going?” “Work.” In the US the response is usually uttered sarcastically or not answered at all- the receiver clearly under the impression that it was a rhetorical question.

Or maybe your coworker sends you on a stupid errand to get something that they could easily get themselves but they’re having you do it because they’re too lazy to get it themselves.  Then you can reply get it yourself, you can go get it and stamp your feet, or you can pretend you didn’t hear the request in the first place and carry on with your day.

Or, you could just not let it get to you.

It’s a realization I had maybe a week ago- and it went a little something like this: why are you getting worked up over nothing? I, of course, had no good answer to this and this meant that the answer itself was so apparent that I should have considered the question rhetorical.

In Burkina Faso- you learn to expect the unexpected, you learn to roll with the punches, and you learn to appreciate the little things in life that you take for granted in the United States. But you also learn to rise above. Your food takes a few hours- talk to other people and share stories. Maybe you’ll get the phone number of the owner so the next time you can call ahead and won’t have to wait. Someone asks you where you’re going- reply to them in the local language and give them a cheerful wave and smile and continue on your way. Your coworker asks you to stop what you’re doing to go to the pharmacy and get cotton- just go and do it cause if you don’t the sick person isn’t going to get their shot to lower their fever and then everything is really messed up. Cause, after-all, what’s two minutes out of your day? And, maybe they’ll get it themselves next time- or maybe you’ll be asking them for something.

As Justin Timberlake says: what goes around comes around. People who are generally too lazy to do things for themselves have that inability to do things catch up to them. People who shout out to you just want to tell their family that they talked to the Peace Corps Volunteer today, and when your ability to see people you know and can speak English with is so limited- what’s a few more hours swapping tales and other fun things?

Seems like my uncle Tim and Bono had it right: Rise Above.