Dani Bulinski

Progress. What is progress?

Last week we had our first in service training called Reconnect. Reconnect is an opportunity to get together with our group-mates and discuss the successes and challenges of being a Peace Corps Volunteer thus far, as well as receive a few more tech and language training sessions. We also trained on the system that we will be using 3 times a year to report our activities.

Outcome indicators and attendance and checks for learning are all important and give us a way to quantify our progress. After our Reconnect training, we are "full" volunteers having passed the "integration" period. I think many of my group-mates, like me, went home with a checklist full of projects to continue, improve, or start. We felt refreshed, excited, and ready to dive in once more.

Then I came back to site, finished prepping super lindo folders for each of my High School Students and... No school today, no school Friday. Maybe no school in between because of rain. Uf. So much for my first week of teaching.

Vania, one of my wonderful comrades send me this during our first month, and it's at times like these that I break out and read:

Gradual Progress

an adaptation of the I Ching by Sheila Heti and Ted Mineo

Weeds shoot up and multiply, but they are easily pulled from the earth. A tree that stands strong on a mountain will last and last. A tree pushes up through the soil and down through the earth in equal measure. Because of its steady and certain progress, it is not uprooted easily. It firmly clasps the ground.

All progress from here will be steady and gradual, like the growth of a tree. This is not a time for agitation or revolution. Impulsive gestures will be ignored or will irritate like weeds. Though impatience at this time is understandable, nothing of lasting value can come from it. Do not try and push things ahead of their time. You may have to wait longer than you’d like for the changes you hope will occur. Work, therefore, gradually, not expecting any quick success. The time for harvesting will come, but it has not come yet.

You have been given a certain place in this world. Your culture and traditions are not a separate thing from you. The people around you who live by its structures and values are not so different from you are. You all feel the same things. You have collectively chosen to act in certain ways, which is what creates a society. You are a real part of this society. Progress involves respect for it, for its laws are part of who you are, and you are more a part of it than you realise. Understand your place within it; progress will spring from its values, and from living within them now. Then, from within your current conditions, you will advance.

If you are rooted in what is virtuous and right, so will your ends be virtuous and right. Do not try to dominate situations. Instead, turn your focus to steadily refining your inner self. There are no shortcuts ahead.

There are no shortcuts ahead. Until next time!