Tuesday, August 16, 2016

...has found the doldrums.


"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." - Thomas Szasz

Well it's time to tackle perhaps the foremost aspect of Peace Corps service here in Swaziland. Something that catches up with every PCV sooner or later, and that is…BOREDOM. Grace and I wrapped up the library, chicken farming, and permagardening projects with a fantastic getaway to Italy with friends and family, and returned to a hectic couple of weeks of playground build trainings, but since then we have definitely hit a lull. We have several playground builds coming up in mid-September, but not a whole lot of very meaningful work in between now and then. So…we face a few weeks of unprecedented boredom.

Boredom is defined in one way as being “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.” In siSwati the word for boredom is situnge, but the root of that word ore accurately translates to loneliness. Grace and I are blessed that we don't have to deal with situnge like so many of our peers, but I'm quite convinced that boredom strikes everyone at some point. For us it results in endless games of cards, new workout routines and videos, TV shows both educational and fictional, books from all genres (there's a good reason the PC Kindle library boasts some 20,000 titles), and occasionally, when we’re at wits end, a nap. However, true to definition we eventually lose interest in these boredom remedies. Not because they don't do a sound job of killing time with various added benefits, but precisely because we know that's all they're doing…wasting time. We came to Swaziland to work towards the goals of our program and community, not to waste time. But alas, it is inevitable and it is everywhere. We get bored at all times of day while we wait for our planned events to come up, morning, afternoon, and night. We face boredom in the bus ranks when we wait for an hour for the khumbi and another hour to even start moving (we’re quite fortunate here as many volunteers can wait up to 3hrs total). We lose interest in our remedies and resort to delirious banter or contemplative silence. 

Swaziland has affected our personalities in more ways than we can count, and I think we both agree that for the most part it's been for the better. So, here’s to hoping in the next few weeks that we can shift from boredom to serenity.


P.S. - The very not boring photos for this post are from Emlembe, the highest peak in Swaziland and a part of the Drakensberg Mountain Range.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Grace. Great blog! My name is Michelle, and my husband and I were among the PC Blog It Home contest winners a couple years ago. I’d like to invite you to an online project I’m working on called Blogging Abroad, with the aim of helping bloggers to promote cross-cultural understanding. First, if you haven’t already submitted your blog to be featured on the site, you can do that here: http://bloggingabroad.org/blogs-around-the-world. I’d be honored if you would also check out the tools and resources I’ve been creating for bloggers like you (there's a monthly photo challenge and 10-week blog challenge). Those can be found here: http://bloggingabroad.org/tools.
    Take care and happy blogging!
    ~ Michelle C.

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