Going With The Flow

A major motif of my Peace Corps experience thus far has been: She learns to “go with the flow”.

The ability to complete this action aids in some of the US Peace Corps’ favorite terms: integration, assimilation, adaptation… and so on. But often, I don’t realize that I’ve Gone with that Flow until I think back.

For example, that time that I was wedged in the back of a mini bus between a young, unkempt man and a young mother carrying her tiny infant and a diaper bag both on her lap. The ride was about 3 hours long and about halfway through it the woman handed me her baby and started rustling through her bag for the baby formula. The young man had already made his interest in the white girl clear and immediately began delving into the topic of my babies: Do I have any? Do I want any? He can give me one. I pleasantly cooed over the baby and warded him off, I can’t honestly remember how. I also held the baby after the mother finished feeding him so of course he spit up on my chest immediately.

Honestly, I was kind of thrilled to be cuddling a baby, it made the dude sitting next to me feel much further away. I must admit though, while the man hit on me, he was very supportive of the young mother, and showed her nothing but respect.

That’s also not the first time I’ve been handed other peoples babies. Babies are everywhere in Jamaica.

I’ve gotten much better at going with the flow in the past 3 months. There was a moment, when I entered the school yard and saw the 4H seedling nursery strewn around in the grass and carried away by yesterdays rain storm. I only thought, “well damn, I guess I can’t be surprised.” And it was a moment of growth, I believe.

The students and I had found a nice protected area under the eaves of the school where we placed our egg crate seedling trays, labeled with vegetable names. Only one teacher knew about it, and the kids found them first. *Shrug* Scenarios like this have happened in the past.

There was a time when these small failures would have made me feel ashamed, but sometimes there’s just nothing more you can do, so you improvise, and you go with the flow. Now our school garden is almost exclusively peanuts… because that’s what we got for free.

I go with the flow a lot on public transportation. I have a “likkle batti”: I fit everywhere. But public transportation in Jamaica defies a lot of American Norms, for instance- once you’re in the car, you’ve made a commitment, you can’t get out and take a different taxi. The driver will often go on alternative routes, run a quick errand for a community member and get gas with passengers in the car.

The other day I needed to buy bread, but there was one taxi waiting to leave for my community and I couldn’t take the time to walk to the bakers and then miss the only taxi so I just got in the car and we left immediately.

The driver mentioned that he needed to pick up his friend and the passengers nodded in ascent, so we took a side street towards the ocean front, slammed a few huge potholes and found that the lady wasn’t ready yet.

But we didn’t turn to leave for home, we drove back to Whitehouse square to pick up another passenger and when we arrived… it was full taxis waiting to go to my community.

Sometimes you just gotta skip the bakery and take a joy ride.