Thanks best friend Michele Mitchell for pulling me through once again:

So Guatemala seems to be just like Thailand in that half of life is wonderful, amazing, everything I hoped it would be and the other half is miserable and I wish it would all end. (Not my life of course but this particular aspect).
The actual Peace Corps part of the Peace Corps has been great! I have language classes every day with a teacher who’s SO adorable and funny (he giggles all the time and tells us jokes/lies and gets us all turned around before telling us the truth or the real word or phrase. LOVE that guy). Some people don’t like the technical training we receive but I find it beneficial, creatively presented and with a plethora of current volunteer guest speakers to give us detailed answers to our hundreds of questions. It’s exactly what I hoped it would be and actually MORE!!! (Peace Corps is an amazing organization in so many ways.)

The miserable part is that my personality has officially left the building. For the past 35 days, the Tiffany that you know has yet to surface. The incessant, boisterous laughter, high-pitched nasally excited voice, wild gestures, exaggerated facial expressions and all around over-the-top bodily animation….Guatemala has yet to see. It’s exactly the opposite of Thailand: for my first three weeks of solitude and social isolation before I found friends, I experienced myself as never before. I think God sent me there to more fully appreciate his blessing to me of my personality. If any of you guys read my entries, you remember it was an outrageous time full of ridiculous moments, crazy excursions, odd insights and innumerable knee-slapping laughs…..but they occurred when I was completely, 100% alone. I can’t recall a time when it so GREAT to be me. Slightly odd or awkward attributes, outlandish comments or wild tendencies were amplified in the absence of outside influence and judgment...It almost felt like the sun was inside my head sitting just behind my face, bursting to get out. I remember sometimes my face felt like it was going to slide off at the end of the day and my eyes felt like little paper weights as exhaustion set in from smiling and laughing so much.

So why has this awkward, mostly reserved person who tends to be a sideline observer emerged here in Guatemala? I ask myself the same question every day. I’ve come up with a few ideas.
First, although obviously an extravert, I recharge when I’m alone. Many of the day’s most memorable experiences occur when I’m riding on the shuttle; thinking; observing/staring at random people; or in my room dancing with my broom when I should be cleaning or re-telling myself old jokes or accidently smashing my head into pieces of furniture. In our three month training with Peace Corps, much as I love it, there is NO free time. Sunup to sundown we’re working and after work there are projects to plan, homework to do, underwear to hand-wash, dinner, family time, bucket baths and any other things you need to get done….in four hours. As you can see there’s no free time and thus no time to recharge and connect with myself.
Second, I’m not so fond of the group dynamic. Please note I did not say I don’t like the people (official disclaimer) but the dynamic is….well my life would be wonderful if the group dynamic were different. Someone said it brilliantly yesterday: It seems that back in the U.S. most of us were jefes (chiefs, bosses, the top dog-type-person in a social, professional or academic situations). Now that there’s a group ¾ full of jefes, it seems to be a big race to see who can elbow their way to the top to be the most outrageous, funniest, wild, unique, interesting, whatever….. of the group. Like none of us know what to do if we’re not “that person” anymore.

Lastly, sometimes I think even if I were Tiffany here, I still wouldn’t have anything to say sometimes! I turn to the left and someone is re-telling the story they shared pot with this famous author in a park. To the right people are sharing their “losing my virginity” stories, behind, they’re discussing how organized religious is the opiate of the masses….WOW….I’m just a simple girl from the farm….I have nothing to contribute to these conversations! I don’t disapprove of or dislike my fellow trainees, it’s just difficult to find common ground at times. I suppose I can see why my personality has temporarily peace-d out. Perhaps she’s wandering up in the hill country somewhere, waiting for the dust to settle and to return to the simple life where having lunch with a beloved friend or seeing someone fall down made her day.
Guatemala is hard because that person, the person most of you know, doesn’t yet exist here. Michele put the rest of the picture into perspective. She mentioned that part of my irritation with life in the U.S .is that it is very materialistic. Often it felt like a rat race to accumulate “shiny things” to put in the nest….beit cars, houses, clothes, jewelry, electronics, DVDs. Now that I’m outside the States, no one is trying to accumulate wealth or material possessions, but some of those around me are now fighting to accumulate status. (She’s eloquent no? Thanks Shelly!)
I understand that everyone wants to find their place (in their family, job, the world) but that causes me unrest. Essentially, every man’s struggle to find a place in his situation means that mankind is striving to develop a hierarchy. Inherent in the name and nature of the hierarchy is the notion that some people are more valuable based on what they have to offer the group—in terms of resources, laughs, attractiveness, connections etc.—while others are deemed less valuable. Now I realize that I’m fighting human nature here and that this system has existed since life was created, but perhaps I’m just seeing it for the first time in the microcosm, mini-world in which I now live. (We spend approximately 40 hours a week with our group of 5 and 16-20 hours with the larger group of 30-45) Experiencing the bigger picture of what occurs in life on such a small scale is hard. In the “real world” of more than 60 people in your life, you can ignore mankind’s innate shortcomings. But in Peace Corps Training, it’s not so easy.

I read a book once that I think explains the situations perfectly. It said that people often use “love” as a form currency. If someone does something we approve of, we give love—in the form of compliments, attention, laughs, time spent together etc—and if someone does something we personally or as a group disapprove of, we withhold love as a form of punishment. Thus the silent treatment, group expressions of irritation directed towards an individual, belittling comments and exclusion are forms of punishing.

I feel like this is one of the moments I was dispassionately waiting for: when all the air has been knocked out of one of my idealisms: you can’t make people view each other as equally valuable and irreplaceably unique. But the truth is, none of us can change the flaws in mankind’s personality. Each of us can only strive to personally override our natural tendency to assign value to our fellow human beings. Withholding love is something that we have all done in our lives. Perhaps being aware of our “love as currency” policy is the first step towards stopping this cruel practice.
Sorry….that was just a side-note. The problem of my missing personality still remained. True to form, Michele has words of encouragement and wisdom straight from the mouth of God. She definitely said it more poetically than this but essentially she told me:

You will always be a woman who draws her strength and joy from God. He gave you the personality that you have for a reason. When you finally do come out, it will be amazing and it will be like God is there in the midst of Peace Corps Guatemala! He put so much of himself in you and his joy and life in you will plant seeds in those around you in ways you will never know. TJ (that’s what she’s nicknamed my personality) will be back. She’s way too strong to be held down by any external force. It’s only a matter of time until the Tiffany that can laugh her way through anything will return. The light inside of you is from God and since nothing can hold down God, nothing can hold you down either! Plus, all of us here are living vicariously through your adventures and you are covered in prayer! There is nothing that can overcome you with all the prayer going on here! He’s gonna bring you out alright!

THANKS BFF!
I swear I’m almost done!
The last thing I’ve learned is that no man is an island. Your attitude towards people affects the way they present themselves and they in turn affect you- how you act and speak. I always wanted to believe that I would be “me” under any circumstances. Now I realize that’s not always true. People around you play a role in the way you express yourself. I suppose I’ll take this opportunity to get sappy and thank all my family and friends!

Who I am is tied up in who you are—your attitudes towards me helped me to become the carefree and happy Tiffany that I am. THANK YOU! Thank you for letting me be the best me that could exist: listening to my pointless stories and laughing at my jokes, for allowing me to be encouraging and loud and overly energetic and obnoxious and bossy and demanding and hot-headed and over-the-top, for encouraging my endeavors and offering me opportunities and resources and kind words of advice. My joy thrived in part because of you. You are so valuable to me!!!!

So what have I learned? Be careful how you treat people. Let’s not hold anyone down but work to only say and do things that build each other up. If you feel you’re the best “you” you can possibly be, thank the people around you. They certainly have something to do with that! Strive to never withhold love from anyone no matter what they have done!

Thanks for listening! LOVE YOU GUYS