Try it. Turn off your internet for a month and all of the sudden your life will slow down. You will start to notice catepillars climbing the pink flowers on the tree across the street. The hum of music purchased from a local disk jockey will float through the air as you take a deep breath and realize that life had been getting awfully loud.
Well, maybe your story would be different. But that is what happened when the internet shut down in Layou. I read an article about how new research indicates that the sudden disconnection from technology can cause a severe depression among individuals in their 20's (not a direct fact but that was the jist of the article) and I believe it. The idea of not being able to call my friends via Google Chat, skype with my dog or see whether or not the world had exploded while I was sitting on one of the smallest islands in the world was unapproachable. In fact, for the first few weeks, I tried to ignore it. I "stole" internet from the church across the street, shamelessly caught up during lunch at the school tech lab and spent entirely too much of my volunteer allowance on trips to town for late evening computer time in the Peace Corps office. Eventually, I had to admit it to myself, the internet was off and it did not have good prospects for being turned on anytime soon.
Four months later, as the internet light blinked to on, I found myself resistant. I had been enjoying the easy going sway that my life had as it swaggered towards the inevitable future. There is something so peaceful in not knowing. And as I sit here, coming to the end of my first year on Smithers Island, I realize that this is how I feel about the whole Peace Corps experience. There are so many days that I wish I could turn it off, go back to my life before when I didn't have the intimate knowledge of the things that this experience has taught me about. Knowledge is power, right? But sometimes it feels like understanding all of this new knowledge is impossible. Making sense of how the world has come to the place that it is right now can be overwhelming. Like the internet, life's little mysteries are now before me, begging to be explored, experienced and embraced.
I think this year, I won't seek to be understood but rather to understand; not to change others but to focus on changing myself. Yes, I think this year, I won't try to explain how this experience is hard even though I have the internet (and water and electricity), I will just share. I am so utterly grateful that I have the chance to live another year in this new world; this tiny little island that I now call home. And that I have such wonderful friends to share it with.
