sweet humility

I think that in my previous entries I have alluded to the fact that a lot of my job is being laughed at.  Walking around as someone who looks, acts, and talks different, people get a kick out of everything that I am.  Even more so when I am applying all that I am to being all that they are, aka immersion.  I can say a completely normal and mundane sentence, in an accent good enough for anyone to understand, and they will come away chuckling.  (E.g.:“ha ha ha ‘nothing is new’”). 

For the most part I have grown comfortable with my role as the village entertainment.  Even acting into it at times; I’ll tell a lame joke that, because I told it, will be a hit, I’ll dance in the middle of a market day, I will even fake stories about my misfortune because Malagasies seem to find other peoples’ misfortune hilarious.   Anything for something to talk about right?

The fact is that in growing into the PCV that I am today, I have had to let go of the idea of embarrassment, shame, and discomfort.  There is just no place for feelings such as those in this work.  One must encompass the utmost humility. 

The other day I was forced to put this humility to the test.  I was teaching my elementary school kids about compost.  We had just finished doing a demo plot and had moved into the classroom to go over the process.  After talking about it for a minute, I began drawing and writing the description on the board so that they could copy it down in their special environment copybooks.  But, for those who do not know me, I am as short as I am foolish and so to perform this task I had to stand up on a chair.  So I step onto the teacher’s chair and doodle away, adding in goofy phrases about the wonder that is compost.  Finished, I go to step down.  But instead of stepping on the solid ground that I am expecting, there is a bucket of water placed conveniently in my footing space.  So as the weight of my left foot goes down, there follows the rest of my body.  And the contents of the bucket.  We (the water, bucket, and I) crash noisily to the ground, I in a perfect back flop.  And this is where I lie until my stunned students rush to me to find out if I am okay. 

Of course, my sense of always being the comic kicks in and a try to make a joke of it.  A joke that they don’t buy at all as they continue to stare down at me with worried faces.  I jump up with great agility to prove that I am okay, cringing slightly over how much my ass hurts and continue with the lesson.