Thursday, December 30, 2010

alternative career options

(...I have a month and a half of written & unposted blog posts to catch up on. Best get cracking!)

Peace Corps, they say, teaches you to be flexible. Always. Be flexible when things come up last minute and you have to catch the bus RIGHT NOW to the city to meet with someone Very Important. Be flexible when that Very Important Person has other Important things to do all day and so you’re left kicking your heels waiting instead of doing all the things you had planned. Be flexible when you organize meetings and no one shows up. Be flexible when fifteen more people than planned show up and you don’t have food for them all. Be flexible especially when you’re traveling, for when the buses don’t come or leave early or sit and wait for three hours because the driver refuses to leave until all the seats are full. Be flexible when there are approximately 2893492326 people on the bus you’re trying to get on, and 953 more people try to board in front of you... and all of them are in your way when you're trying to get off Be flexible when you’re standing on that same bus clutching onto whatever you can reach to stay upright in your six square inches of space while the cobrador squeezes by you collecting fares and the bus tears around corners as it climbs into the mountains.

Be flexible enough to stop and breathe when the rain is coming as the sun sets and brings a double rainbow with it. Be flexible enough to actually enjoy the company of nine little kids all wanting to hang out with you and look at all your things. Be flexible enough to know when you can’t be flexible at all.

Also, I am learning, be flexible in terms of your future career! Who says what you have planned is actually your true vocation? In the interests of exploring all possible options, I have been testing out possibilities in my free time. I would make a terrible washerwoman (I always get sand in all my pockets when I wash things in the river), but I’ve found a few other choices to consider:

I would make a passable manicurist...



...a middling sort of chef...



...a pretty decent poster-drawer (with some help)...



...and a hilarious dancer...



...But for the moment, at least, I guess cosmetology school and So You Think You Can Dance stardom can wait until after I’m finished being a volunteer.