Change of Pace: Time for reflection, personal growth and relaxation

Last Saturday (March 16), Chelsey and I spent the day walking around the Costanera (beach), central city and plaza.  While sitting in the park (eating a 1/2 pound tub of ice cream), I found myself blown away when thinking about where we were and what we are doing.  Only two months earlier I had been going to work everyday at 7:00AM on the peoplemover, sitting in a chair for 10 hours and then returning home only to eat dinner and sleep.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Life was monotonous and I wasn't finding happiness through work.... fast-forward two months.... I am in a park with no worries or stresses in the world, sitting in the sun, reading a book and eating ice cream in a different hemisphere.  For a moment, I had this overwhelming sense of pride about where we were, what we are doing and about our Leap of Faith.    

This feeling of pride has, however, been tempered with difficulties in transition.  For me, one of the most difficult elements of the transition to missionary life is the change of pace.  A couple examples:

1. When it rains here, they do not have school and stores close.  Nobody gets worked up about it.  There is no making up "rain days" in the summer.  People just relax and enjoy the day.
2. People take a siesta after lunch.  I am not good at this.  I feel like a two year old who refuses a nap.  I don't like sleeping in the day.

I know that it is no surprise to all that know me that I like to be busy all the time.  For the last month I have been having an ongoing argument with myself about whether we should be busier at the mission.  One part of me (the efficient, Western-thinking half of me) feels like I am not doing a good job unless I am putting in 8+ hours of labor a day.  I want to finish work for the day and see all that I have accomplished.  The other part of me says this craving for efficiency is not the way of life for a missionary and, in an ideal world, should not be the way of life for anyone.  When most think about being a missionary I believe they primarily think about providing services to others who need help.  This is definitely important but, perhaps equally important, is the personal reflection and development that is supposed to take place.  Introspection and reflection are necessary elements of any successful mission work.  If you do this correctly, your mission work does not end when you leave the community in which you are embedded but, rather, continues to live with you wherever you might be. 

This internal acknowledgment (that efficiency and productivity are not the primary goals of our trip) has, however, not made this transition easy.  Provide anybody a few extra hours in the day and I will almost guarantee that those hours will be spent on the computer, in front of the TV or on our cellphones.  In order to remedy this, I have been locking my cellphone and computer in the closet during the day.  I know this is a bit extreme but if my I-Phone is sitting around then I am tempted to play with it.

A similarly difficult component of the transition is ceding all control over your daily lives to people you don't really know.  At home, we have so much independence.  We have a car and we eat when we want to eat.  Here, up until recently, we have never really known where we were going or what we were doing.  Often we would find ourselves getting in the car and asking "Donde vamos?"  So, despite all the aforementioned efforts at being more "tranquillo", we sat down with the Sisters and drew out a schedule of our normal week.  This has provided us a little peace of mind although we are still clueless about what is happening 50% of the time.  As we learn more of the language, I hope this will resolve itself.

The last two weeks have been filled with downtime.  We have had two rain-days where we have had absolutely nothing to do (because the city shuts down).  As of right now, when we have school, Jardin (pre-school) is only two hours long (8-10 AM).  We go to three hours long after Easter (8-11 AM).  In the afternoon we typically have a few hours work with either tutoring, or the centre de salud (Health Center).   

Next week is an absolute vacation because it is Holy Week.  No School for 5 days straight!!!  On Monday we will be in Asuncion (6 hour bus ride away) all day so that I can go to the embassy to get a new passport.  Tuesday we have a Paraguayan history class and then businesses are all closed Wednesday through Easter.